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Internship Programme

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Information for Students

Instead of writing a thesis, students may opt to complete an internship in a role directly relevant to their field of study. The internship requires a minimum of 480 hours and may be undertaken anytime after the end of the teaching term until the third week of August. Students are responsible for securing their own internship placements. The School provides a list of potential host organisations. UCD Careers offers support with application writing and related resources.

Information for Host Organisations

UCD SPIRe has established an internship programme for graduate students undertaking primarily MA programmes in the school. These internships are designed to provide our students with a unique opportunity for professional development and to apply their knowledge in real-world situations.

To this end, we are approaching potential hosts that may wish to participate with us in this programme. Internships will normally:

  • Have an explicit research focus or project(s) which will be defined in an agreed Learning Contract between the student, the host organisation and the UCD SPIRe staff member coordinating the internship programme. The Learning Contract will also specify the nature of the duties to be undertaken, the learning objectives associated thereto, the host’s proposed management of the internship and reporting requirements.
  • Entail a full-time work load of 480 hours over the period early May to end of August.
  • Be subject to all disciplinary and HR processes, as well as the employee insurance policy, of the host organisation.
  • Relate the student’s educational and academic experience to the professional needs of the host with which they are associated.

Internships are an integral part of the student’s academic programme at UCD, and will be assessed academically as such. Students undertaking internships will also remain subject to all requirements under UCD’s academic and disciplinary codes.

UCD SPIRe is proud of the quality and skills of its graduate students. Over the last few years our graduates have gone on to professional posts with the European Commission and European Parliament, the European External Action Service, the British, German, Irish, Korean and Turkish Foreign Ministries, the Asia Development Bank, the IBRD, the World Trade Organisation, the UN New York and UN Geneva and the IMF as well as a wide variety of international private sector employers and Non Governmental Organisations. We have every confidence that our students will make a valuable and distinctive contribution to their host organisations over the period of their internship.

Contact Us

If you would like to pursue the possibility of hosting a UCD SPIRe Graduate Internship, or have any questions on the programme, please contact:

Dr Tobias Theiler
Internship Coordinator
UCD School of Politics and International Relations
Belfield, Dublin 4
Email: (opens in a new window)tobias.theiler@ucd.ie

Past Host Organisations 2022-2025

These are the organisations where our students did an internship from 2022-2025.

UCD School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe)

School Office: G301, Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.