Public Affairs Specialist

About the role

Do you have an in-depth knowledge of the EU institutions? Do the EU’s legislative and policy processes tickle your interests? Are you a skilled communicator with the ability to understand complex matters and translate these into readable and easily digestible material? We are looking for someone with excellent analytical, English language and writing skills to join our EU Liaison Team and bridge the gap between policy and practice.

At GÉANT we enable research, education, science and innovation across the globe via our high-speed data communications networks and secure access technologies. Our EU Liaison team follows the EU institutions and their policy initiatives to ensure GÉANT, National Research & Education Networks (NRENs) and the Research & Education (R&E) community have a clear understanding of current and future legislation and policies. We communicate key policy initiatives to our governance, as well as the NRENs, and deliver policy digests and material for internal policy-based conversations.

You will be part of the EU Liaison team, where we wrestle with EU legislation and policy initiatives on a daily basis aiming to provide long-term “navigation” to our stakeholders. Being a small team, we work closely together and you will be contributing across various topics in a team approach. In this particular role you’ll work closely with our external EU Liaison consultant, ‘translating’ content into material that is meaningful to our internal teams, such as Partner Relations and our technical teams, as well as to our executive management team, our Board, and the General Assembly.

About you

We're looking for someone with at least 2 to 3 years of relevant experience. You’ll need to be a proactive starter-finisher, able to identify and work on tasks independently but also skilled at working collaboratively in a fast changing and diverse environment. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are a must; you’ll need to successfully engage with both operational teams and executives and explain complex matters to a variety of stakeholders. Key to this role is your ability to read and understand detailed EU legislative and policy documents and translate into commonly understood language. You’ll also need:

• Excellent English writing and speaking skills
• Aptitude for writing clear summary documents
• Astute cultural awareness and deep appreciation of diversity

If you are fluent in at least one other language that would be advantageous, as would experience of living and working in another country.

This is a hybrid working role so you will need to live within commuting distance of our Amsterdam office and spend at least two days in the office each week. The role will be offered as a 1-year definite contract, with the possibility of becoming indefinite thereafter.

About GÉANT

At GÉANT we enable research, education, science and innovation across the globe via our high-speed data communications networks and secure access technologies.

You’ll also receive excellent benefits including a generous holiday allowance and a 5% end of year allowance as standard.