Our team and mission

This position is based at the ESA HQ – Paris, France

Our department is responsible for elaborating and implementing the agency’s industrial policy, for defining and implementing the geographical return and industrial audit policies, for fostering the relations between industry and the agency and for supporting the successful accession of new member and cooperating states.

SME* (Small and Medium Enterprises) and start-ups play an ever-increasing role in the activities of ESA and the industrial landscape of its Member States. Today they represent about 30% of the companies contracted by the Agency and are important contributors of innovation for ESA Programmes. The SME Section of the Department implements the ESA SME Industrial Policy with the objective to facilitate both the introduction and the sustainable involvement of SMEs in the activities of the Agency and to support their introduction into the industrial space supply chain. To this end the SME Office performs a variety of activities also including analyses concerning the involvement of SME in the Agencies activities and their economic and financial characteristics as well as the evolution of the SME landscape.

*SME are defined as companies having a staff headcount <250, annual turnover ≤ 50M€ or a balance sheet total ≤ 43M€, see Recommendation of the European Commission 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003.

Candidates interested are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Economic and financial analysis of European space SME

In the context of elaborating and implementing the Agency’s industrial policy it is important for ESA to maintain an in-depth understanding of the space industry and its characteristics. The focus of the concerned activity is to contribute to the characterisation of the European space SME community. This concerns in particular statistical analyses of the economic and financial characteristics of European space SME and their involvement in the activities of ESA.

To this end you will access a variety of available data sources of the Agency comprising of programmatic, financial, and economical data (current and historic) concerning the European space industry working with ESA. Your analyses will contribute to the extension and consolidation of the existing collection of data and models of relevant economic and financial characteristics of space SME community. Your analyses will consist of performing in depths studies of industrial policy relevance and will contribute to the improvement of the Agency’s statistical toolset. The precise scope and content of the specific analyses to be performed during the period of the internship can be agreed with you in line with your research interests.

You will be supported in your work by the members of the SME Office and other services of the Department.

Behavioural competencies

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

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

Education

You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of a university course at Master’s level and you need to remain 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 Member State language would be an asset.

Knowledge of Economics, Statistics, Econometrics would be an asset.

The internship requires the handling of large datasets. Proficiency with MS-Excel is required and experience with data analysis and visualization software such as Python and Power-BI would be an asset.