Trainee (Evolving PMS data management, governance and data analytics capabilities)

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 Regulatory Data Management Office.

Specific objectives and projects

Context

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines. To support its activities and meet its legal obligations, EMA develops and maintains a large portfolio of applications.

Product Management Services (PMS) is a core component in this landscape, as it manages and supplies human medicinal product data to many EMA applications and services.

As part of its continuous improvement efforts, the Agency aims to enhance its product governance, data management and analytics capabilities.

To support this work, EMA is looking for a motivated trainee interested in developing data management skills while gaining insight into the regulatory environment for medicines and contributing to the evolution of PMS services.

Project description

The project focuses on improving how regulatory data on human medicinal products is managed and transformed into meaningful information that supports both operational work and longer-term strategic decision-making.

The work follows a Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) continuous improvement cycle, aimed at introducing incremental improvements to products, services and processes in order to enhance quality, efficiency and effectiveness.

The trainee will contribute to analysing the current state of PMS data management processes and identifying opportunities for improvement, supporting the development and implementation of enhancements.

Tasks and responsibilities

Activities during the traineeship may include:

Requirements gathering: engaging with PMS colleagues to understand how product data is managed and shared across multiple systems.

Improving data management processes: contributing to the documentation and improvement of existing data management processes together with PMS colleagues and business analysts.

Service monitoring: reviewing and extending service monitoring capabilities and contributing to improvements of service status and health dashboards.

Data quality monitoring: reviewing data quality reports and rules and supporting improvements to aggregated data quality dashboards.

Exploring AI capabilities: exploring potential AI-based approaches and demonstrating relevant functionality where appropriate.

Product governance: contributing to activities related to data ownership, metadata, architecture and data quality in order to improve the maturity of PMS data governance.

Learning outcomes

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 computer science, data science, data analytics or similar, or medicine, pharmacy, biology, chemistry or similar (minimum of three years or more) that must have been obtained between 6 May 2025 and 6 May 2026 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

General competencies:

Analytical mindset

Proactive

Open-minded

Curious

Outcome-driven

Technical:

IT literacy, particularly in MS Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook)

Ability to work with VTC tools (Teams, WebEx, Zoom)

Desirable / Advantageous:

Familiarity with an international environment

Working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite, in particular Office 365, including SharePoint

Basic IT service management knowledge (e.g., incident, request, problem)

Good writing skills and experience in preparing various types of communications, notes, presentations and emails

Familiarity with data management is preferred

Familiarity with reporting tools (e.g., PowerBI) and data visualisation tooling is a plus

Familiarity with programming languages (e.g., Python, SQL) is a plus

Behavioural Competencies

You will demonstrate the following behavioural competencies:

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

Conditions of traineeship

The traineeship is offered for 10 months (1 October 2026 – 31 July 2027) 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 €2,049.77 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.

Expected selection timelines