Our team and mission

The Entrepreneurship & Business Incubation Office (CIC-SUB) represents a visible contribution to ESA’s entrepreneurial effort to boost green and digital commercialisation. By tapping into Europe’s enterprising communities, the Office is expeditiously extending the reach of European commercial space into the global economy and society at large. 

In particular, the ESA Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) focuses on supporting entrepreneurs and early-stage start-ups using space related technologies and/or data. The ESA BICs focus on three main objectives: 

1. addressing real customer needs;
2. diversifying space as a business (NewSpace);
3. focusing on acceleration of commercial growth.

The first ESA BIC was launched in the Netherlands in 2004, which has grown into a pan-European network of 32 ESA BICs in 22 Participating States by mid-2025. The Office additionally manages the ESRIC Start-up Support Programme in Luxembourg.

The Entrepreneurship & Business Incubation Office (CIC-SUB) represents the best place for students to engage with decision-makers in industry and aspiring entrepreneurs for future engagements beyond their internships. It will also be an exciting time to join as we will be implementing the new programme to be adopted at the Ministerial Conference in November 2025.

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

Field(s) of activity for the internship

Topic of the internship: Data Analytics, Digitalisation, and Business Incubation

The European Space Agency (ESA) has a network of ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) across Europe. Each year around 230 start-ups with a space-related business idea are selected for incubation, while over 1950 start-ups have been supported altogether. The ESA BICs help these start-ups to develop and grow their businesses. ESA routinely collects information about the incubatees and alumni of ESA BICs. This has been done to evaluate the socioeconomic impact of the ESA BIC supported start-ups in terms of revenue, employment and investments. 

As an intern, you will have the following tasks:

• process and analyse data from start-ups on a portfolio level;
• create and manage databases related to business incubation activities;
• identify opportunities for further automation of ESA BIC data collection, processing and visualisation, including developing new approaches and dashboards;
• prepare presentations and reports on findings;
• perform other assignments based on operational needs of the team, for example activity coordination, supporting on-site events, conducting business research. 

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 studying at master’s level. In addition, you must be able to prove that you will be 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 ESA Member State language is an asset.

During the interview, your motivation for applying to this role will be explored.

Knowledge and skills in one or several of the following areas are required:

• statistics;
• data analysis;
• economic Key Performance Indicators for high-tech start-ups;
• MS Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint;
• statistical software (e.g. R, PowerBI);
• data automation and dashboards.

Programming languages (e.g. Python) are considered an asset.