He was appointed Waynflete Professor of Physiology and a Fellow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford in 1979, at the age of 35. From this same university he was awarded a DSc higher degree in 1989. He was also Director of the James S. McDonnell and Medical Research Council Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He has served as President of the Biosciences Federation, now the Society of Biology, the British Neuroscience Association and the Physiological Society, and as president and chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, now the British Science Association. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), Academia Europaea and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (HonFRCP), the Royal Society of Medicine (HonFRSM), the Institute of Biology (FRSB), the British Pharmacological Society, the Society of Biology (FBPhS), and of Corpus Christi College and Downing College, University of Cambridge.