There are many opportunities for internships within the European Union and Member States, including private companies and public organizations. In this article you will find useful suggestions for the paths to follow in order to pursue an apprenticeships period abroad.
In first place it is relevant to mention the preeminent European Programme on the matter which is the Erasmus+; it combines all the EU’s current schemes for education, training, youth and sport.
The most resourceful way to access it is through the University offices which usually inform students about the open opportunities, in fact the main recipients for the Erasmus+ traineeship are people enrolled in a Higher Education Institution.
At the same time if you are seeking for open positions is recommended to consult the platform created by the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) available at ErasmusIntern.org which provides a place where companies and organisations can publish their internship offers and search for interns, and where students that want to do an internship abroad can have their profiles, search and apply for internships vacancies.
Nonetheless a valid third option is to directly contact a company you are interested in doing a traineeship at. Many companies have internship programmes which are easily adapted to the Erasmus+ traineeship scheme.
With regards of the opportunities within public entities, must be said that is possible to attend official traineeship with the European Commission, agencies and bodies.
On the topic a distinction has to be made, indeed two programmes stand out, for the European Parliament the Schuman Traineeships and for the European Commission the Blue Book traineeship Programme.
The Schuman Programme offers fully paid traineeships twice a year which take place in one of the European Parliament’s official place of works, namely, Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
Correspondingly the Blue Book Programme let trainees to work all over the European Commission, its services and agencies, mostly in Brussels, but also in Luxembourg and elsewhere across the European Union. The nature of the work will really depends on the service you are assigned to.
In both cases fundamental requirements are shared and that include the fact of being EU citizen and having completed a higher education degree, corresponding to a Bachelor’s cycle, or equivalent.
Differently for those wishing to develop their own entrepreneurial ideas, the Erasmus programme for Young Entrepreneurs may be the perfect choice, since its inception in 2009 it has been able to deliver many successful stories.
Therefore this EU-funded initiative specifically grants the premises for a win to win collaboration, seeing involved a new passionate entrepreneur eager to learn and to acquire knowledge by teaming up with an experienced entrepreneur who can benefit from fresh ideas and insights on the business field.
If you want to learn more, you can check out the i-Coach project website and like its Facebook page. The project “i-Coach: Innovative Toolbox for Internship Implementation” is funded by the EU Erasmus+ program and aims to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the skills and competences necessary to support the process of implementing successful internships programs, through the development of methodology and an innovative training course.
Project Information:
