EsaAbout this role
Summary: Design and develop a digital solution to manage and discover scientific knowledge for space life sciences research. The role involves prototyping AI-enabled interfaces, analyzing user needs, and building data pipelines to support the Exploration Science Office.
Location
ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Our team and mission
The Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration is responsible for Europe’s human and robotic exploration activities in low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station and future post-Station activities, as well as exploration of the Moon and Mars. Its work combines science, technology development, mission preparation and operations.
For this internship, you will work across two complementary teams:
The Exploration Science Office (HRE-S) develops and implements the scientific element of the Human and Robotic Exploration programme, including the biological and life sciences research. The team works closely with the European scientific community to define research priorities, prepare experiments and bring biological payloads and investigations to the International Space Station and other research platforms. It also captures and maintains the scientific knowledge, experimental results and lessons learned generated through these activities. This team will provide the scientific context for your internship and represents the main user community for the solution you will develop.
Your technical home base will be the Software and Artificial Intelligence Team (HRE-FI), which develops and applies software and emerging digital technologies across human and robotic exploration. The team works in areas including software engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, extended reality, data technologies and quantum technologies. You will work in a multidisciplinary technical environment and receive support in areas such as software development, data systems, artificial intelligence and digital solution design.
By working across both teams, you will have the opportunity to translate a real scientific knowledge-management challenge into a practical technical solution, while working directly with the scientists and stakeholders who are expected to use it.
Candidates interested are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int
Field(s) of activity for the internship
The European Space Agency’s Exploration Science Office has established a Life Sciences Handbook to capture scientific knowledge, lessons learned, experimental results, technologies, standards and research recommendations generated through decades of space life sciences activities.
The handbook is intended to help researchers make better use of previous experience when designing new experiments, payloads and protocols. This can include very practical questions, such as which materials, methods, environmental conditions or preservation approaches have already been demonstrated successfully. By making this knowledge accessible, the handbook can help researchers avoid repeating known mistakes, build on previous findings and design more robust science.
As the handbook grows, its value will increasingly depend on how easily the scientific community can discover, understand and reuse its content, and on how effectively new knowledge can be captured and added over time.
During this internship, you will design and develop a digital solution that helps the scientific community make best use of this growing knowledge base.
Tasks
During the internship, you will:
1. Understand users, data and existing solutions
- work with scientists to understand how they would use the handbook, what information they need and where current barriers to adoption and discovery lie;
- consider different levels of digital affinity and trust within the user community and translate these into functional and technical requirements;
- analyse the structure, content and metadata of the existing handbook and associated data;
- review relevant existing tools, platforms and approaches within and outside the European Space Agency, for example ESA Data Labs, scientific data archives and comparable knowledge-access solutions used by other research communities, and assess their relevance to the use case in order to inform build, reuse, integration and hosting decisions.
2. Design, prototype and evaluate the solution
- assess suitable ways of making the solution accessible to its intended users, for example through integration with an existing website or other digital environment, taking into account hosting, authentication, access rights, permissions and deployment constraints;
- coordinate access, integration and deployment considerations with relevant scientific, technical and service stakeholders and reflect the resulting requirements in the proposed solution;
- assess and prototype suitable user interfaces for accessing the knowledge base, for example structured browsing, category-based navigation, filters, search, visual exploration or conversational artificial-intelligence interfaces;
- evaluate suitable retrieval approaches, including semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation and conversational artificial intelligence, considering accuracy, transparency, user trust and maintainability;
- design and implement a working prototype connecting the underlying knowledge base with the selected user interface and search and retrieval components;
- test and refine the prototype with representative users from the scientific community.
3. Enable sustainable growth and future operation
- design a sustainable data pipeline that allows new experimental results, lessons learned and recommendations to be captured, reviewed and incorporated into the knowledge base with minimal manual effort;
- document the solution and provide recommendations for further development and operational use.
Through this internship, you will gain hands-on experience in scientific data and knowledge management, user-centred design, software prototyping, web-based information access, artificial intelligence, information retrieval and data pipelines, while contributing directly to the reuse of scientific knowledge in future space life sciences 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](https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/careers/ESA_Competency_Framework.pdf)
Education
You must be a university student, preferably in your final or second-to-last year of university course 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.
You bring the following skillset to the team:
- academic background in data science, scientific computing, bioinformatics, information science, knowledge management, human-computer interaction, biology or a related scientific or technical field;
- experience working with scientific data, structured datasets or knowledge bases;
- ability to translate user needs into functional requirements for a digital solution;
- practical programming or scripting skills sufficient to build and adapt a working prototype;
- experience designing or prototyping web-based interfaces, including search, filtering, navigation or data-driven components;
- understanding of databases, data structures and how digital applications connect to underlying data sources;
- familiarity with artificial intelligence, semantic search, large language models or retrieval-augmented generation is an asset;
- experience in academic, research or space-related environments is an asset.
We are particularly interested in candidates who combine an understanding of scientific or research data with the ability to design and prototype digital tools for accessing and reusing that information.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness
ESA is an equal opportunity employer, committed to achieving diversity within the workforce and creating an inclusive working environment. We therefore welcome applications from all qualified candidates irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, disability or other characteristics.
At the Agency we value diversity, and we welcome people with disabilities. Whenever possible, we seek to accommodate individuals with disabilities by providing the necessary support at the workplace. The Human Resources Department can also provide assistance during the recruitment process. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact us via email at ESA.Student.Internships@esa.int.
Important Information and Disclaimer
During the recruitment process, the Agency may request applicants to undergo selection tests.
Applicants must be eligible to access information, technology, and hardware which is subject to European or US export control and sanctions regulations.
The information published on ESA’s careers website regarding internship conditions is correct at the time of publication. It is not intended to be exhaustive and may not address all questions you would have.
Nationality
Please note that applications are only considered from nationals of one of the following States: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.