Vera Istvánovics has been affiliated to the Balaton Limnological Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (BLRI HAS; 1979-1998) and to the Water Research Team (WRT) of the HAS hosted by the Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (1998-2010) and by the Department of Hydraulics and Water Resources Management (2011-2023), Budapest University of Technology and Economics. As a visiting researcher, she spent about a year at the Erken Laboratory of the Department of Limnology, Uppsala University (Sweden).

At the BLRI, her research area was phosphorus cycling in freshwater ecosystems including processes related to both sediments and phytoplankton with the overall aim of eutrophication management. In the WRT she coordinated the elaboration of the ecological aspects of the project, “Water Management Strategy of Hungary in the 21st Century”. Inspired by the EU 5 research project, “Phytoplankton-on-line” (EVK1-CT-1999-00037), she continued with the application of real-time monitoring in different water bodies with regard to eutrophication management and phytoplankton ecology.

She has been a Doctor of Science since 2000. She is the member of the International Society for Limnology (SIL), the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), the International Association for Danube Research (IAD), and the Hungarian Hydrological Society (MHT). She is the author of more than 100 scientific publications.