Placement Report
Internship at the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS),
Groningen, The Netherlands
Student name: Theoni Stamatopoulou Student number: S4083083
Programme: MA International Relations Track: International Security External supervisor: Mr. Merijn Hartog Placement supervisor: Ms. Sonia Mascarell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 2
2. BEFORE THE INTERNSHIP 3
2.1 APPLICATION PROCESS 3
2.2 EXPECTATIONS 4
2.3 CESS 5
3. DURING THE INTERNSHIP 6
3.1 TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 6
3.2 THE EFFECT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC 8
3.3 EXTERNAL SUPERVISION 8
4. AFTER THE INTERNSHIP 9
4.1 PERSONAL LEARNING OUTCOMES 9
4.2 CONNECTION TO THE PROGRAMME AND TRACK 11
4.3 TIPS FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS 11
1. Introduction
As part of the Master programme in International Relations and more specifically in the track of International Security at the University of Groningen, it is a prerequisite for students to do an internship of at least seven weeks during the second semester, in order to get their degree. After a long and time-consuming application process, I did my internship at CESS in the three-month period from 16 March to 19 June 2020.
The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed description of my internship, by shedding light on the various tasks and responsibilities assigned to me, as well as about the added value of this internship that can be seen through the personal reflection of learnings and outcomes I have undergone during and after the internship. To do so, I decided to structure this report in a chronological order, so that the reader is able to understand the logical continuity of my decisions and progress before, during, and after the internship. It is worth mentioning that my internship co-occurred with the writing of my thesis. Even though, I had the opportunity like the other students to decide whether to first start with writing my thesis or do the internship, I chose to do both at the same time. It was a difficult decision to make, however I wanted to push myself to its limits, because I am aware that in the future there will be very few moments when I will be able to choοse, whilst multitasking will be a necessary asset in the job market. Having mentioned the above information, in the first part of this report, I will describe the actions I took before starting my internship at CESS. More specifically, I will refer to the application process until I make the decision to do my internship at this particular institute, as well as my expectations prior to the internship. I will also briefly describe the core mission, the nature and the objectives of CESS in order to give an overall view to prospective students who might be interested to complete an internship at this institute.
Subsequently, in the second part, I will present in detail the tasks and responsibilities assigned to me during my internship and I will explain in brief the effect of Covid-19 pandemic to partially change the initial plan of my internship. What is more, I will allude concisely to the supervision on behalf of my internship provider who is also the Director of the institute, Mr. Merijn Hartog.
Finally, in the third part, I will make a final insightful evaluation of the personal learning outcomes I gained after the end of my internship and reflect on whether my
expectations were or were not fulfilled. Additionally, I will report on the connection between my internship and my master programme and track and also provide some useful tips for future interns.
Last but not least, a conclusion is dedicated to summarize all the above information and a recommendation to do your internship at CESS in the future.
2. Before the internship 2.1 Application process
While discussing with my classmates about the curriculum of our programme, I realised that the majority of them was looking forward to do an internship, since almost none of them did during their Bachelor’s degree. At the same time, all of them were also pretty stressed about the application process and the time it would take until they finally find an internship. To be honest, that was not the case for me. During my Bachelor’s degree at Panteion university of Athens, Greece, I completed two different internships parallel to my studies. The first internship was at the Institute of International Relations and the second one at the Centre for International Strategic Analyses, both of them located in Athens. While an internship is not mandatory in order to get a Bachelor’s degree at a Greek university, 9 out of 10 Greek students actually complete an internship during their Bachelor studies. Therefore, I was fully aware and familiar with the steps I had to follow in order to find an internship for the second semester of my Master’s degree. Having in mind that I had to find an internship by myself and deal with the courses and deadlines of the first semester at the same time, the application process already started in early October 2019. CESS where I later completed my internship was not my first choice, because I simply was not aware of the existence of this institute in Groningen.
I first started applying in a variety of different institutions, non-governmental organisations, research centres and official organisations within the European Union. It was a completely conscious choice of mine to apply only in places located in the European Union, since after having recently moved to the Netherlands, I did not want to move again in such a short amount of time outside European borders. The application process was difficult, time-consuming and the vacancies demanded many different documents such as CV, letters of recommendation, and motivation letters. What is
more, almost every vacancy had different eligibility criteria, while the majority of them were non-paid internships and that was definitely a thing to consider before applying for one of them. After applying in several different organisations for example in Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy, and even in my home country Greece, either I did not receive any response at all or I was informed that it was too early to apply for an internship or that the internship was unpaid and I had to cover all the accommodation costs by my own. At the same time, most of the vacancies offered by the IRIO department were either available for students who spoke Dutch fluently, and I did not, or were somewhat irrelevant to my specialization and lacked of international aspect. After all these subsequent failures, I was very disappointed and worried that I could not find an internship in due time.
Howbeit, in mid-December, I randomly saw the vacancy at CESS published on behalf of the IRIO department and immediately searched for the organisation’s official website in order to get information about its mission, nature, and objectives. I was really thrilled to find an institute in relation to my specialization in Groningen and seized the opportunity to apply for this internship without a second thought. I sent my CV and a motivation letter to Mr. Merijn Hartog via email and he responded positively a few days later. We arranged an interview in early January. I prepared myself the best I could by retrieving all the available information through CESS’s website about the staff and read the policy briefs and research publications. My meeting with Mr. Merijn Hartog was an informal talk rather than a strict interview. He informed me about the projects currently running at CESS and my potential tasks and responsibilities as an intern and then I briefly presented him my motives and my desire to be an intern for CESS. The feeling I had after our meeting was really positive and indeed a few days later I was chosen as an intern for CESS for the three-month period from 16 March to 19 June 2020. In our next meeting before starting my internship, I also met my new colleagues at the office and I was informed that I was going to work full-time from 9 am to 5 pm from Monday to Friday and receive 150 euros per month.
2.2 Expectations
My expectations prior to the internship were already very high with regard to this institute. After discussing with some of my classmates as well as with CESS’s previous intern who was also Greek, I was informed about the institute’s good reputation and
significant contribution to projects in relation to security issues, security sector reform and governance, civil society and about its high quality training sessions. Another reason why I chose this particular internship was also the fact that the main currently running project at CESS is DECOS Western Balkans that concerns the promotion of democratic oversight of the security sector in the countries of Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. Having raised and lived in Greece, those three countries are of great interest to me and the engagement with the Balkan countries could definitely be a major area of interest and professional potential in the future. In addition to that, the fact that I could be able to meet, work, and cooperate with fellows from Central Asia countries visiting Groningen as part of the EUCAM project assigned at CESS was just as important and I was looking forward to be in this widely multicultural working environment. Last but not least, equally important in my decision to do my internship at CESS was the fact that I did not have to move to another city or country, since the office was located a few steps away from the University area in the city centre of Groningen and in this way I could prolong my stay in the Netherlands and get to know the Dutch working environment and sharpen even more my English writing and oral skills.
2.3 CESS
CESS is a non-governmental organisation based in Groningen and it mostly deals with research and training in the areas of political development, democracy, human rights and security and assists governmental and civil society staff to cope with the struggles and challenges in their professional environments. Even though its permanent staff only consists of four people, CESS has a great impact within the international community and has achieved a lot since its creation in 1993. Throughout the years it has been funded by several foundations and international organisations and the most prominent among them are the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Open Society Foundations.1 CESS’s currently running projects are the following: a) DECOS Western
Balkans, which is a project that seeks to foster the democratic oversight of security in the countries of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia2, and b) EUCAM Central Asia,
1 More information can be found at CESS’s official website, in About CESS, Mission, available at
https://cess.org/about/mission/
2 More information about DECOS Western Balkans can be found at
which is a project that seeks to bring the EU closer to the Central Asia countries in matters of engagement in common policies and expand their network.3
3. During the internship 3.1 Tasks and responsibilities
My tasks and responsibilities at CESS were described to me in great detail prior to the internship. From the very first day of my internship, I was asked to keep track of the daily news both from local and international sources for the countries of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia and create a summary of my findings in an already existing dossier for each country. In this way, important information was gathered together for each country in relation to their political development, human rights, democratic oversight, civil society, and jurisdiction that could later be very useful for the needs assessment report for each one of the three countries.
The biggest part of my internship was dedicated to the DECOS Western Balkans project assigned at CESS until 2022. As I mentioned before, it consists of capacity building and research components in regard to the democratic oversights of the security sector in the countries of Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. My task was to create a concrete dossier for each one of the three countries in relation to their Parliament, the Ombudsman, the Audit Office and the civil society sector. I was looking for facts and figures, their organisational structure, their gender perspective, their annual reports, their plenary sessions, their laws in relation to the security sector, their engagement with other local or international organisations, their committees in relation to the security sector and key indicators such as corruption, transparency, media involvement, and democracy. The task was completed a few days before the end of my internship. During the whole process of creating the dossier, I was getting feedback from Mr. Jos Boonstra who was very satisfied with my research and the only thing he asked for was to provide some personal comments after the end of its dossier as well as several questions for our partners in the aforementioned countries that we would like to have a better insight.
3 More information about EUCAM Central Asia can be found at
Another major task that took me several weeks to complete was the Organisational Risk and Integrity Assessment (ORIA). ORIA is a document that every institution must have in its possession, since it provides important information for an organisation that seeks to commit to new research projects such as organisational information, legal framework, financial information, human resource policy, monitoring and many more. As part of the ORIA document, I was asked to review CESS’s strategy and even make some improvements and new additions, to work on CESS’s code of conduct, to provide information about the policies in regard to the whistle-blowers and integrity advisers, and to create a potential pathway in order to have a risk management system in place. My work on ORIA was taken into account, however I was informed that there was no immediate need for this document at that time and it will be upon completion in the future.
In addition to that, I also spent about a month of my internship working on a dossier for the country of Armenia. CESS is currently looking for fundraising in regard to Armenia, therefore I was asked to prepare a country dossier with the most imminent challenges, problems and difficulties in Armenia in relation to law enforcement, or the security sector, or the civil society sector and its engagement with the Parliament. For the first two weeks, I studied a variety of reports, policy papers, official documents, and academic papers and kept track of the news in order to acquire sufficient knowledge to proceed to the writing of the country dossier. After I have written the dossier, I got feedback from my colleagues who said that the work was excellent and I had to go one step further by trying to create a potential project design for Armenia. That was the most difficult part for me, since it was the first time to deal with project design and management. However, it was a great process and my colleagues made sure to provide me with all the necessary information and now I have more than enough knowledge about project design.
Last but not least, I also did several miscellaneous activities such as looking for potential tenders or calls for proposals that might be interested for CESS and updating their database system in Sendinblue with contacts gathered from their trips, trainings and events.
3.2 The effect of Covid-19 pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic that flooded the world in early 2020 has definitely contributed to the partial change of my initial placement plan. The day I was going to start my internship at the office coincided with the imposing of lockdown in the Netherlands. The director of CESS and my external supervisor, Mr. Merijn Hartog has asked me to work from home for the following weeks in order to be safe and not put myself and my colleagues at risk. In mid-April we decided to be at the office every Wednesday and Friday, since I was able to isolate myself in a room at the office where I did not come in contact with anyone and therefore I felt safe. The remaining three working days, I was working from home. This condition was at place until the end of my internship. In regard to my tasks, we could no longer welcome at our office fellows from several Central Asia countries (Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) and therefore I was asked to cancel their plane tickets and let them know about the changes made due to the pandemic. What is more, scheduled visits to Brussels, Berlin and the Western Balkans could no longer take place under those circumstances. Ultimately, despite those changes the rest of my plan remained as it was.
3.3 External supervision
As I have already mentioned before, my supervisor on behalf of the internship provider was the Director of CESS, Mr. Merijn Hartog. I am very grateful to him for his supervision during my internship. From the very first day at the office, he made sure to make me feel comfortable, answer to questions I might have, share my concerns and see me as a colleague and not just an intern. During my internship, I was basically accountable to him for most of my tasks, but also I got feedback from Mr. Sportel and Mr. Boonstra for various activities. Despite Mr. Hartog’s interest about my work and experience at the office, he was also really concerned about my psychological condition in regard to the coronavirus pandemic and the changes it brought to my initial placement plan. There were many times he stressed that my internship was surreal, however even under those circumstances I managed to adapt to this unprecedented situation. In the end, another part of his supervision was also our weekly staff meeting online, where we gathered all together and informed each other about the outcome of our tasks and responsibilities during the week.
4. After the internship
4.1 Personal learning outcomes
A few weeks have already passed since my last day at office, thus I am fully aware of the skills improved and the goals achieved during my internship at CESS. First of all, I am once again very grateful to my supervisor and my colleagues at CESS. All of them were more than friendly and welcoming to me and made my internship at the office as smooth and pleasant as possible. One of my main personal goals was to find out the right way to transit from theory and academic knowledge to practical and analytical activities. The desideratum was no longer to be able to absorb information but rather critically use this information and create something new out of it. This process was achieved through my work at desk research, backgrounders for the Western Balkans and the project design on Armenia. Through research, I did not just acquire better knowledge about the Western Balkans and Armenia, but also stressed new entry points and possibilities of research in areas that are not currently studied enough.
Equally important was the fact that I had to cope with different tasks and deadlines and in this way I mastered my prioritization and time management skills. Of course I cannot put aside the improvement of my interpersonal skills, for example by acknowledging the importance of trust, connection between people, mutual respect and ability to make decisions. From the very first day, my colleagues motivated me to be confident and have high self-esteem and always strive for more, even in cases where mistakes are been made. Another important outcome of this internship was the network of contacts I built. I can now rely on highly respected people in their fields who can serve as mentors or motivators to me or could even offer me a job in the future.
What is more, I had a very insightful experience about the working environment in an NGO and I consider that it would be a suitable choice for me to work in a similar institution in the future. The greatest challenge I faced had nothing to do with CESS, but with the sudden circumstance of the Covid-19 pandemic. I found myself having more negative thoughts than usual and struggling to follow my daily routine as in the pre-Covid-19 era. Despite the negatives followed by this situation, I managed to find also some positives, for example how to practice patience, stop my negative thoughts and exercise resilience in favour of work.
In general, my expectations prior to the internship were fully satisfied. Not only had I gained a thorough understanding of the working environment but also got to know another field of work which is project management that I did not have the chance to be involved in before.
4.2 Connection to the programme and track
Now that my internship came to an end and the same will apply soon to the Master programme in International Relations and more specifically in the track of International Security, I am certain that I made the right choice in regard to my studies and the internship. The expansive and multidisciplinary character of this programme prepared me more than satisfactorily for my internship. The concept of International Security in IR is very wide and indicatively includes different kinds of security such as energy security, human security, environmental security and many more. During my internship at CESS I was not involved in depth in any of the aforementioned security branches, however my internship had a lot to do with the security sector in general. What is more, the institute itself is well known for its international aspect and on how much it has contributed to the promotion of healthy relations among several countries. My studies at this Master programme provided me with the theoretical tools, the academic knowledge and the critical capacity in order to put theory intro practice during my internship.
4.3 Tips for prospective students
In my view it is always helpful to learn from others’ experiences and from what they have to share about it. First and foremost, try not to delay with the application process. As soon as you start your first semester, I recommend you already search for internships that might interest you. In that way, you will have sufficient time to process your data and make the right decision. Secondly, in case you do your internship at CESS, an important qualification it to be able to do different tasks for different people at the same time. Multitasking is definitely an asset, as well as the ability to understand what is asked from you by asking lots of questions. Do not be afraid to ask questions, since it is not out of curiosity or silliness but out of genuine interest in how to do your job better. In addition to that, do not be afraid to take imitative and have faith in yourself. Even if you make mistakes, your supervisor would appreciate the fact that you did not lose your courage.
5. Conclusion
Despite its brief duration, my internship at CESS was definitely a valuable experience. Whilst I did other internships in the past, I can admit that this internship was different than the others. At this given time, I was more mature both intellectually and psychologically to have my first impression from a working environment. Having acquired new knowledge and experience due to my master programme, the time was right for my internship to be a stepping stone to my future professional life.
I am very happy with my choice to do my internship at CESS and get to know first-hand the tasks, the responsibilities, the decision-making and the project outcomes of an NGO. I consider myself lucky to have the chance to acquire better understanding about the difference in ideas, approaches, and culture of the Dutch working environment, which is clearly different than the one of my home country in Greece. Nor have I learnt a lot about myself but also about the countries which I dealt with during my internship. Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Armenia are countries which are of great interest in regard to their security sector and have many unsolved issues, therefore they are among the countries I would potentially engage professionally in the future.
Even though the application process prior to the internship was very time-consuming and exhausting, it ultimately led to a great internship whose overall outcomes had a positive sign. The Covid-19 pandemic is definitely an issue one cannot put aside, however people will always face challenges and difficulties in their lives and the important thing is how one can adapt to them or even better overcome them.
