CERN Student Internship In Switzerland (Geneva)

Company Description

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter – fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature.

Diversity has been an integral part of CERN’s mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. 

One of CERN’s key missions is education. Our professionals very much enjoy sharing their knowledge and expertise with students who are committed and passionate about their chosen field. There’s no better way to learn than on the job. And when that job happens to be in a world-famous research organization and center of scientific excellence, it’s even better. 

Job Description

Imagine getting involved in work that is changing the world and imagine doing it before you’ve left university. Imagine working in an international environment and having a great quality of life.

Take part in CERN’s Administrative Student Programme! 

There’s no better way to learn than on-the-job. When that job happens to be in a world-famous organisation and centre of scientific excellence, even better. If you’re an undergraduate in Administration and are looking for a practical training period or a place to complete your final project, you could spend 2 to 12 months at CERN during the course of your studies (Bachelor or Master). If your university requires or encourages you to acquire work experience through an internship, imagine doing this at CERN in Geneva. 

It could be in any of the following disciplines: translation, human resources, advanced secretarial work, business administration, logistics, law, finance, accounting, library and information science, engineering management, science communication, education, audiovisual, communication and public relations, psychology, audit are but a few examples of the many domains in which successful applicants will learn and contribute their knowledge.

A panel of CERN experts meets three times a year in February, June and October, to review all applications, and typically around 50 students are selected to join the programme annually.

Qualifications

In order to qualify for a place on the programme you will need to meet the following requirements:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• You should have completed at least 18 months of your undergraduate studies (Bachelor or Master’s) specializing in an administrative field at the time of the next student committee taking place in February 2025.
• You remain registered as a full-time student during the internship.
• You have a good knowledge of English or French.

Please note that in case you are studying in a STEM/engineering field, you are not eligible to apply for this position. Instead, please consider applying for the CERN Technical Student programme.

Additional Information

CERN would very much like to benefit from your expertise, commitment and passion. In return, CERN will provide you with:

• A contract of association from 2 to 12 months.
• An allowance of 3452 Swiss Francs per month (net of tax).
• A travel allowance.
• Depending on your personal circumstances, a supplement if you are married and/or have children.
• Coverage by CERN’s comprehensive Health Insurance scheme (the contribution will be automatically deducted from your allowance).
• 2,5 days of paid leave per month.

Required documentation: 

Required documentation:

You will need the following documents, in English or in French, clearly labelled (e.g. “CV”, “Academic transcript”, “Reference Letter”) and in PDF format to complete your application:

• A CV.
• A copy of your most recent academic transcript giving an overview of your marks (if you download it from your university portal please make sure there is no protection so that we can open it).
• A reference letter from your University Professor is mandatory. Should you have one from a previous internship you may add this as a second reference.*

*Please make sure you have all the documents requested to hand when you start your application on our career portal as they cannot be added after its completion (only reference letters can be submitted afterwards). 

You may upload the reference letter yourself, whilst submitting your application, or through your referee via the link you will receive shortly after submitting your application.

Here are few tips:

• Be as specific as possible in the application fields “Education” and “Experience”.
• We recommend you prepare your answers in Word or Notepad in advance, as once you start completing the application on SmartRecruiters, you have a limited time to submit it.
• If you apply to more than one job, you will need to upload the documents for each application you submit.

Your application along with all supporting documents should reach us no later than November 4th 2024 (at 23:59 CET). **

**Documents submitted after the deadline will not be taken into consideration.

Please note that your application may also be shared during the process with a panel of national experts for evaluation purposes. Ultimately, it will be reviewed by a panel of CERN experts between 4th of November and beginning of February 2025. During this period, you could be contacted for a phone/video interview or additional information. The outcome of the recruitment process will be given no later than end of February 2025.

Please note that if a traineeship agreement is required by your institute (university), as an international organisation CERN will not sign external documents. You will therefore be required to use the CERN traineeship agreement provided upon request.

Can non-members join CERN?

Non-Member States with international co-operation agreements with CERN include Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Georgia, Iceland, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Palestine, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States and Vietnam. The Observer status of the Russian Federation is suspended in accordance with the CERN Council Resolution of 8 March 2022.

CERN also has scientific contacts with Bahrain, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ghana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Oman, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Singapore, Sudan, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uzbekistan and Zambia.

About CERN collaborators

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership that works to accelerate the development of cutting-edge computing solutions for the worldwide LHC community and wider scientific research.

Through CERN openlab, CERN collaborates with leading technology companies and research institutes. Within this framework, CERN provides access to its complex ICT infrastructure and its engineering experience – in some cases even extended to collaborating institutes worldwide.

Testing in CERN’s demanding environment provides the ICT industry collaborators with valuable feedback on their products, while enabling CERN to assess the merits of new technologies in their early stages of development for possible future use. This framework also offers a neutral ground for carrying out advanced research-and-development activities with more than one company.

Intel

Partner

Intel is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com.

Oracle

Partner

Since 1983, Oracle and CERN have partnered to drive scientific and technological innovation. CERN requires information technologies that are efficient, robust, and enable wide collaboration, and Oracle — a founding partner of CERN openlab — provides solutions that store, manage, and distribute information at the required scale and cost. Oracle is a global provider of enterprise cloud computing and data management, empowering businesses on their journey of digital transformation. Oracle supports 430,000 customers in 175 countries develop strategic roadmaps to advance their journey to cloud. Learn more about at www.oracle.com.

Siemens

Partner

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, operating in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors. The company has around 430,000 employees (in continuing operations) working to develop and manufacture products, design and install complex systems and projects, and tailor a wide range of solutions for individual requirements. For over 160 years, Siemens has stood for technological excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality. www.siemens.com.

Micron

Partner

Micron Technology is a global leader in advanced semiconductor systems. For 40 years, Micron has been instrumental to the world’s most significant technology advancements. Micron’s broad portfolio of high-performance memory technologies is transforming how the world uses information to enrich life. To learn more about Micron Technology, visit www.micron.com

Google

Contributor

Google Cloud is widely recognized as a global leader in delivering a secure, open, intelligent and transformative enterprise cloud platform. Google Cloud is built on its private network and is the product of nearly 20 years of innovation in security, network architecture, collaboration, artificial intelligence and open source software. Google Cloud offers a simply engineered set of tools and unparalleled technology across Google Cloud Platform and G Suite that help bring people, insights and ideas together. Customers across more than 150 countries trust Google Cloud to modernize their computing environment for today’s digital world.

https://cloud.google.com/

IBM

Contributor

IBM is a leader in solving global challenges with advanced technology built and applied responsibly. The company’s industry-first initiative to build commercial universal quantum computing systems, IBM Q, is available to businesses, researchers and developers for exploring practical business and science applications. IBM Q quantum devices are accessed using Qiskit, a modular, open-source programming framework for leveraging today’s quantum processors.

E4

Contributor

Since 2002, E4 Computer Engineering has been innovating and actively encouraging the adoption of new computing and storage technologies. Because new ideas are so important, the company invests heavily in research and hence in the future. E4 Computer Engineering offers its customers complete solutions for their most demanding workloads on: HPC, big data, AI, deep learning, data analytics, cognitive computing and for any challenging storage and computing requirements. Additional information about E4 Computer Engineering is available at www.e4company.com.

Comtrade

Contributor

Comtrade 360, a member of Comtrade Group BV, is one of the most experienced technology solutions provider in Southeast Europe. For over 25 years, Comtrade 360 has provided full stack product development solutions including data management, monitoring & analytics and cloud/hybrid cloud development solutions to leading infrastructure & systems software vendors worldwide. Since 2015, Comtrade 360 has collaborated in the development of CERN data storage systems. For more information, visit www.comtrade.com.

Roche

Contributor

Founded in 1896, Roche continues to search for better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases and make a sustainable contribution to society. The company also aims to improve patient access to medical innovations by working with all relevant stakeholders. More than thirty medicines developed by Roche are included in the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines, among them life-saving antibiotics, antimalarials and cancer medicines. Moreover, for the twelfth consecutive year, Roche has been recognised as one of the most sustainable companies in the pharmaceutical industry by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI).

SCimPULSE

Research member

The SCimPULSE foundation is a non-profit, public benefit organization based on research, innovation and education. The foundation connects people, institutions, schools and corporations, hosting an open network where potential ideas become feasible initiatives, to support targeted solutions until they achieve escape velocity or scale up to global impact. Learn more about at www.scimpulse.org

Fermilab

Research member

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance LLC, a joint partnership between the University of Chicago and the Universities Research Association, Inc. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @Fermilab.

INFN

Research member

The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) is the Italian research agency dedicated to the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the laws that govern them, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR). It conducts theoretical and experimental research in the fields of subnuclear, nuclear and astroparticle physics, visit their website for more information home.infn.it/en.

University of Trieste

Research member

The University of Trieste is a lay, pluralistic, public sector institution of higher education that is independent of any ideological, religious, political or economic orientation, in compliance with the principles of the Constitution of the Italian Republic and the international commitments Italy has undertaken in the fields of scientific research and university education. 

The main objectives of the University are scientific research and higher education, in order to promote the cultural, civil, social and economic development in the Italian Republic. The University acknowledges that teaching and research are inseparable and that both, where envisaged, are inseparable from support services. For more information visit www.units.it

Study in Switzerland

Switzerland at a glance

Switzerland is home to much more than chocolate and cuckoo clocks. Spectacular Alpine mountain ranges are flanked by crystal-clear bodies of water such as Lake Geneva. You will also be in for a treat in regards to the culture to be found here. The history of Switzerland can be traced back to at least 450 BCE and these lands have been occupied ever since. Thanks to influences of nearby nations such as France, Italy and Germany, this country boasts a truly international flavour; the country’s four official languages are German, French, Italian, Romansh (with only some 60,000 speakers today).

Universities in Switzerland

You will regularly see many Swiss universities in the world’s top 100 ranked universities – most notably ETH Zurich, EPFL, the University of Zurich and the University of Geneva.

ETH Zurich, with a clear focus on technology, is often considered the best university in Switzerland. Originally founded in 1855, it is renowned for its cutting-edge research and its wide selection of courses in different areas of science and technology. There are more than 19,000 students enrolled here, with nearly 40% international students.

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) was incorporated in 1853 and, like ETH, specialises in technology. The majority of courses are offered in French, but there are many Masters and Doctorate programmes offered in English.

With some 25,000 students, the University of Zurich is the largest institution of higher education in the country. You can choose from a selection of courses including science, law, philosophy, theology, medicine. Many of their Master’s degree programmes are offered in English.

Founded in 1559, the University of Geneva is the third oldest university in Switzerland, and also the third largest, with around 16,000 students. 40% of the student body are international.

Universities in Switzerland

• Bern University of Applied Sciences
• Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
• ETH Zurich
• EU Business School
• IFM Business School
• International University in Geneva
• Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
• Swiss IM&H
• University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW)
• University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland
• University of Basel
• University of Bern
• University of Fribourg
• University of Geneva
• University of Lausanne
• University of St. Gallen
• University of Zurich
• USI Università della Svizzera italiana