Trainee (Change Management Centre of Expertise)

About the traineeship programme

The Agency is looking for motivated, qualified recent graduates or students on an Erasmus+ or other programme or PhD students or Master's students (who posses a previous degree), who are interested in gaining experience and contribute to the Agency’s work for every patient in Europe. The purpose of a traineeship at the Agency is to perform tasks that are predominantly in the interest of the trainee’s training and principally serve to increase the trainee’s knowledge and to gain relevant experience.

Placement description

We are looking for a trainee in the Digital Change Office within the Digital Business Transformation Task Force.

Specific objectives and projects

Change Management is how EMA ensures the behavioural changes that people often need to make as part of its projects, initiatives and (digital) transformation are adopted on time and in full, while limiting the disruptions such change often has. 

During this traineeship, you will join the EMA's Change Management Centre of Expertise (CM CoE) team, within the Digital Change office, and will help implement EMA's change management operating model.

You will be onboarded on the EMA’s Change Management methodology, toolkit and trainings and become part of the EMA’s change management Community.

In this traineeship, you will deep-dive in change management models and business cases which are available in the change management literature and through professional online change management knowledge sharing platforms and LinkedIn learning. From this, youe will create practical exercises, games, quizzes, roleplays, storytelling etc. which will eventually be used in change management workshops to upskill EMA staff on change management. Before that, you will ‘dry run’ these new activities with the colleagues of the Change Management Centre of Expertise.

Learning outcomes

Through this traineeship, you will

• Research best practices and external cases developing them into shareable content.
• Present these insights to the change management community in engaging workshops.
• Research and implement new ways to unlock change management tools for EMA staff so they can apply tools in their day to day work.
• Support the delivery of EMA"s Change Management Centre of Expertise's Change Management Boot Camps as well as other workshops.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible for consideration for this placement, you are required to:

1. enjoy full rights as a citizen of a European Union Member State or Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway;
2. possess a university degree in (organisational) psychology, Human Resources, Education, Organisational Development, Communication or Business Management (minimum of three years or more) that must have been obtained between 30 September 2023 and 30 September 2024 or be a university student on an Erasmus + or a similar programme or a PhD student or a Master's student with a previous fully finished degree in the areas mentioned before.
3. a thorough knowledge of English (at least level C1) and good knowledge of other official EU language (at least B2) of the Common European Framework for Languages

For criteria 1 and 2, you will be required to provide proof in the application form and at the interview stage. Failing to present these documents may result in the disqualification from the procedure.

Additional skills

In addition to the eligibility criteria, you will have:

• Presentation skills.
• Good skills at processing theoretical knowledge into explanations for lay people.
• Proactive approach to learning and work.
• Analysing and creative problem-solving.
• Good knowledge in making visualisations of solutions in Power Point, or MIRO or other digital tools.
• Costumer centricity.
• Team collaboration skills.

Behavioural Competencies

You will demonstrate the following behavioural competencies:

• Communication skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Working with others
• Adaptability
• Research and analytical skills
• Learning and development

Expected selection timelines

Conditions of traineeship

The traineeship is offered for 10 months (1 March 2025 – 31 December 2025) and takes place at the Agency’s premises in Amsterdam with possibility for teleworking up to 40% of working time from The Netherlands and occasional teleworking from outside The Netherlands. Traineeships are offered for either full-time or part-time (80% or 50%) if combined with university studies.

The Agency pays a monthly stipend of €1,858.31 for a full-time traineeship (reduced accordingly for 80% or 50%) and a travel contribution upon joining the Agency.

Each trainee will have a mentor at the Agency who will guide the trainee through the programme.

The conditions of employment are stated in the Executive Decision on rules governing the traineeship programme at the EMA available here.