Intern in the Commercialisation Department - Innovation Services Section

Location
ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands

Intern in the Commercialisation Department - Innovation Services Section

Type of Appointment
Intern

Our team and mission

Within the Commercialisation Department and under the direct authority of the Head of ScaleUp Programme Division, the Innovation Services Section follows three main objectives:

1. nurturing innovation and de-risking projects through dedicated environment, expertise and funding;
2. brokering innovative (space) solutions to ESA programmes or European industry;
3. diversifying space as a business (New Space).

Among other tasks, the Innovation Services Section is in charge of the following business lines:

• ESA Phi-Lab NET, whose mission is to bring research closer to commercialisation by bridging disruptive research and commercial needs;
• ESA Technology Brokers Network, whose mission is bridging the gap between space and terrestrial markets.

Field(s) of activity for the internship

You will support the ESA Innovation Services Section in developing digital tools for supporting the monitoring of innovation activities, and the innovation process itself.

Following a requirement and feasibility assessment, you will select one or more projects, for the development and prototyping of the following tools:

• dashboard for monitoring technology transfer activities;
• tool for discovering existing knowledge and technologies to solve problems (e.g. lessons learnt from past R&D projects and analogous solutions to similar problems), leveraging existing databases and AI agentic capabilities.
• tool for expert forecasting on technical questions, to efficiently inject collective intelligence into the design process.

Learning Objectives:

• apply your software engineering or data science skills to develop and refine tools supporting ESA’s innovation services;
• gain practical experience in translating conceptual frameworks into operational software;
• contribute to ESA’s efforts to provide technology intelligence and support technical innovation;
• develop skills in AI and agentic systems, RAG, semantic search, knowledge engineering, and the analysis of structured and unstructured data.

Behavioural competencies

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

Education

You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of university course at Master’s level. In addition, you must be able to prove that you will be enrolled at your university for the entire duration of the internship.

Additional requirements

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

You are a technically capable and curious problem-solver, able to design and prototype digital tools.

You should be familiar with AI techniques, software development, data visualisation, Microsoft digital tools and stakeholder-oriented innovation work.

Useful competencies include knowledge, skills and/or experience with:

• AI and data science fundamentals, including GenAI, agents, RAG, Natural Language Processing (NLP), semantic search and embeddings;
• python, APIs, data processing, technical architecture and rapid proof-of-concepts;
• structured and unstructured data modelling, analysis, abstraction and cross-domain problem-solving;
• Microsoft Power Platform, dashboards, data visualisation and user-centered interfaces.

Important Information and Disclaimer

Applicants must be eligible to access information, technology, and hardware which is subject to European or US export control and sanctions regulations.

Nationality

Please note that applications are only considered from nationals of one of the following States: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.