Internships in Estonia

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu

City: Tartu, Estonia

Internship Dates: June 16 –August 8, 2025

About the Organization: The Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu combines top-level scholarly research with a dynamic, international learning environment at all three levels of higher education. Research conducted at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies encompasses the main subfields of political science (comparative politics, international relations and political theory), as well as area studies (Baltic, Russian, East European and EU politics) and, more recently, research on the usage and impact of information and communication technologies. We offer the following ‘tracks’ for the internship (which can also be combined, depending on the interests and competences of the intern) :

1) The Centre for Eurasian and Russian Studies (CEURUS) is offering an internship opportunity for students interested in the history, politics, and contemporary societies of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Northern Eurasia. Interns will have the opportunity to work on various projects based at the centre, including the European Research Council project EMPSOLID ("Empire of Solidarities: A Connected History of Private Charity across a Decentred Romanov Empire, 1855–1914"). Tasks may involve research assistance, conducting archival research at the Estonian National Archives in Tartu (knowledge of Russian, German, or Estonian is required), data collection, literature reviews, and assisting with event organisation for academic workshops and seminars.

2) The University of Tartu Ukraine Centre (UTUC) seeks assistance with implementing a range of projects (see list of ongoing projects at the UTUC website). Possible tasks include research assistance, event organization, communication and dissemination tasks, and reporting. 

3) Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Rejuvenating democracy in the EU” (REPAIR) offers an internship opportunity for students interested in the European Union and European politics. Possible tasks include research assistance, help with event organization and planning, writing grant proposals, reporting, dissemination and communication activities.

Number of Opening(s): 2

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Museum of Occupations and Freedom VABAMU

City: Tallinn, Estonia

Internship Dates: June 16 - August 8, 2025

About the Organization: VABAMU is a museum in Tallinn city centre that depicts the 20th century history of Estonia, as well as the current day independence. Vabamu hosts the permanent exhibition Freedom Without Borders, the exhibition about occupation, resistance, freedom, and recovery, as well as temporary exhibitions. Vabamu has around 20 employees and reaches out into three branches: the museums Vabamu and KGB Prison Cells, the youth learning platform NoVa, and its international collaboration unit Global Conversations.

Work Description: 

• Working with museum’s Collections Manager to help with collections storage as well as with archiving, packing and labelling different items in museum collections. When needed, digitizing items, creating metadata for the items in the exhibition, and designing a structure for the exhibition on the Spotlight platform.
• Working with the museum’s curator and head of exhibitions on organizing museum events, including event communication, setting up events and moderating discussions. Providing ideas and insight on future exhibitions, especially regarding how to present Estonian-centered topics for global audiences. Helping to make exhibitions by writing or editing texts and searching for information.
• Helping to set up and support Vabamu’s annual summer school Hüppelaud, where students in the age range of 14-19 gather to come up with new ideas and build actual tech products that would help solve some real-life problems while working as a team.
• Carrying out tours in the KGB prison cells and helping with Vabamu Song and Dance Festival program logistics.

Number of Opening(s): 2

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NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE)

City: Tallinn, Estonia

Internship Dates: June 16 - August 8, 2025

About the Organization: International and multidisciplinary cyber defence hub, established in 2008, accredited by NATO. Membership includes 37 nations from NATO and beyond. Staff size: approx. 70. Cooperation with nations, NATO, academia, private sector. CCDCOE rests on three main pillars: research, training and exercises. For the research activities, the Centre will actively search for cooperative partners from academia, industry, military, government and other research organizations. With all our activities, in our focus areas of technology, strategy, operations and law, we demonstrate our expertise in the field of cyber defense - The Tallinn Manual, the annual International Conference on Cyber Conflict, CyCon and the largest live fire technical cyber defense exercise Locked Shields.

Work Description:

• Project 1 - Scenario preparation: Help develop and produce an exercise setting in which NATO entities will hold the world’s largest live-fire cyber exercise. This exercise will take place in the cyber hacking realm as well as in a cloud hosted AI powered environment. Interns would be responsible for creating and fleshing out personas, organizations, and nations for use in the exercise.
• Project 2 - False Flag Analysis and Detection: Help produce an analysis of past false flag events, both cyber and in other mediums and help create a framework for how to anticipate, detect, respond and debunk false flag cyber-attacks.

Number of Opening(s): 2

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Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech)

City: Tallinn, Estonia

Internship Dates: June 24 - August 8, 2025

About the Organization: Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) is the only flagship in engineering and IT science and education in Estonia, providing higher education at all levels in engineering and technology, information technology, economics, science, and maritime.

Internship Department:  The FinEst Centre for Smart Cities (FinEst Centre) is an international research and development center, driven by passion to enhance the quality of life in urban areas. The FinEst Centre focuses on five research themes (Mobility, Energy, Built Environment, Data and Governance) aimed at developing cities to be more human-centric, supported by digital data and services.

Work Description: The intern is expected to join the continuous process of matching long-term city challenges (e.g. urbanization, climate change) with ideas on how to solve them in the urban environment via research and innovation actions that we call pilots. If successful, those pilots aim to transform European cities of becoming climate-neutral and smart by 2030.

The FinEst Centre is conducting smart city pilots where each pilot project should involve one Estonian municipality and out foreign one. The FinEst Centre is also participating in several pan-European projects that conduct, for example, climate-neutral pilots in various European Cities (e.g. Net Zero Cities) and twin-city pilots on urban data integration. The total combined volume of those piloting programmes exceeds 100 million dollars.

This is a dynamic role having the potential tasks (depending on the interest/ availability):

• Assist in evaluation of cutting-edge pilot projects before they will be tested out in the urban environments – engage with experts with a goal to coordinate the evaluation process.
• Help in setting up international cross-sectoral teams of urban developers and researchers – e.g. facilitate meetings.
• Identify best practices to inspire and inform replication and scale-up in cities.
• Gather and analyze data – dependent on the skills and project needs, perform qualitative (e.g. setup interviews, analyze interview data) and/or quantitative data (statistical analyses).

The FinEst Centre has a flat and open working culture where the intern would be welcomed as an equal colleague.

Number of Opening(s): 1

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Latvian Strategy and Economic Research (LaSER)

City: Rīga, Latvia

Internship Dates: June 16 – August 8, 2025

About the Organization: The Latvian Strategy and Economic Research (LaSER) Institute was founded in March 2024. LaSER is an independent, non-partisan, privately financed think tank that develops innovative and evidence-based policy ideas and political initiatives supporting the development of a prosperous, democratic and secure Latvian society and state embedded in the European union (EU) and NATO.

Work Description: In addition to every-day research assistant tasks (assisting senior researchers in gathering and organizing qualitative and quantitative data, undertaking literature studies, maintaining and updating the web page and other public engagement activties) LaSER's Stanford interns would work together with our Latvian interns (our three current Latvian interns are from the Stockholm School of Economics in Rīga and the University of Latvia) and liase with Latvia's Ministry of Economy and Latvia's Investment Development Agency, on researching and writing a policy paper (that will be published) analyzing prospects and opportunities for deepening trade and investment opportunities between Latvia and the USA.

Number of Opening(s): 1

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