Candidates

SHAPE is looking for highly motivated candidates from a wide variety of disciplines including: Political Science, International Relations, Security Studies, Law, Economics, Engineering, Logistics, Human Resources, Financial Administration, Accounting/Auditing, Information Technology, Languages, Journalism and Media Communications, Electronics, Library Science.

The SHAPE Internship Programme is limited to 35 interns per year and lasts 6 months.

The 2026 call for applications for SHAPE internships is open and will close on February 28, 2025. Applications for 2025 are no longer being accepted.

Applications received after the above mentioned date will not be considered.

There is one call for applications per year with two starting dates, in January or in September the following year. The intern will have to specify whether the desired starting month of the internship is January or September.

All applications are acknowledged by an automatically generated e-mail. Should you not receive an acknowledgement, please re-submit the application.

Eligibility criteria

To qualify for an internship, the applicant must meet the following eligibility criteria:

All applicants for an internship must be citizens of a NATO member nation.

Proficiency in one of the two NATO official languages is essential and a working knowledge of the other is desirable. Since the working language in the headquarters is mainly English, candidates must be proficient in the use of the English language.

Applicants must be at least 21 years of age. Normally, candidates should not be over the age of 35 unless they are engaged in a PhD programme and their field of study or thesis is a particular benefit to SHAPE.

Candidates must have completed a first degree of university. However, depending on the project, candidates may be required to have obtained a specific degree. The programme is open to current MA/MSc and PhD students or recent graduates (degree obtained within the last 18 months).

Only applications fulfilling the eligibility criteria will be taken into consideration. The others will be rejected automatically.