Intern in the Director General's Cabinet

Our team and mission

The Director General's Cabinet is responsible for supporting the Director General and Council in their operational activities, including acting as Secretary to Council, and supporting the ESA governing bodies and delegations. Responsibilities include relations with Member States (including pre-Council consultations, preparation of meetings and visits of the Director General, maintaining brief and up-to-date dossiers on each Member State), preparation of Executive Board meetings and bilateral meetings with Directors, providing language services (interpretation, translation, editing, minute-writing), record management and protocol services. The Director General Cabinet is also responsible for providing management support and administrative coordination for the Director General Services.

The Director General and Council Support Division is responsible for providing all necessary support to the day-to-day work of the Director General, in particular: 

• supporting the Director General’s operational activities in coordination with the Director General’s Office; 
• preparing the Director General’s internal meetings, providing in particular the secretariat of the Executive Board and organising bilateral meetings with Directorates; 
• the Director General’s correspondence, speeches, presentations, reporting and contributions to publications; 
• the protocol service, in particular maintaining a diplomatic network and managing the VIP participation to launch events with the support of the communication services; 
• maintaining relations with ESA Member States, including pre-Council consultations, as well as meetings and visits of the Director General. This responsibility includes maintaining briefing notes and up-to-date dossiers on each Member State and ensuring ESA-wide coordinated preparation; 
• monitoring subsidies granted to third parties and memberships.

For further information visit our web site: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic: Space Policy & Strategy

As an intern, you will put into practice the knowledge acquired during your studies, while supporting the activities of the Members States Relations team within the Director General's Cabinet.

The main tasks will be, in coordination with the other interns of the team, to support the daily tasks of the team and in particular:

• identifying main space trends, policies, governance changes and other policy-related topics in selected ESA Members States;
• contributing to the regular update of the Observatory of Member States;
• contributing to the elaboration of files prepared before Director General visits to Member States;
• following and giving assistance for major meetings and planning activities;
• ad-hoc tasks in support of the team’s activities

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking

Education

You must have student status and be enrolled at university for the entire duration of the internship. You should preferably be in your final or second to last year of a university course at master’s level in a technical or scientific discipline.

Additional requirements

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.

Educational knowledge: Knowledge and background in the areas of space law, policy, international relations and/or related fields would be an asset.