EMSA

The European Maritime Safety Agency was established for the purpose of ensuring a high, uniform and effective level of maritime safety, maritime security as well as prevention of and response to pollution by ships within the EU.

The idea of a European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA)  originated in the late 1990's along with a number of other important European maritime safety initiatives. EMSA was set up as the decentralised agency that would provide a major source of support to the European Commission and the Member States in the field of maritime safety, security and prevention of pollution from ships. The Agency was established by Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 and subsequent amendments have refined and enlarged its mandate to cover among other measures, the efficiency of maritime transport.

The Agency provides technical, operational and scientific assistance to the European Commission and Member States in the fields of maritime safety, maritime security, prevention of, and response to, pollution caused by ships as well as response to marine pollution caused by oil and gas installations.

The Agency also contributes to the overall efficiency of maritime traffic and maritime transport and supports European cooperation on coastguard functions.

EMSA's activities can be broadly described as:

• providing technical and scientific assistance to the Member States and the European Commission in the proper development and implementation of EU legislation on maritime safety, security, prevention of pollution by ships and maritime transport administrative simplification;
• monitoring the implementation of EU legislation through visits and inspections;
• improving cooperation with and between Member States;
• building capacity of national competent authorities;
• providing operational assistance, including developing, managing and maintaining maritime services related to ships, ship monitoring and enforcement;
• carrying out operational preparedness, detection and response tasks with respect to pollution caused by ships and marine pollution by oil and gas installations;
• at the request of the European Commission, providing technical operational assistance to non-EU countries around relevant sea basins.

From the publication of this call, EMSA envisages to select 12 trainees. The starting date of the traineeship is 1 September 2023 until 28 February 2024. Trainees will be informed at least one month in advance of the possibility of extending the traineeship for further 6 months until 31 August 2024.

More information about the selection procedure as well as the rights and duties of the trainees can be found in the Decision N˚2022/036 of the Executive Director relating to the rules governing the traineeship scheme of EMSA.

1. Executive Office

Tasks and duties of the trainees:

Profile 1:

• Using the Adobe suite, primarily InDesign and Illustrator, carry out graphic design work on a range of brochures, catalogues, reports, and other outputs.
• Take and edit photographs of events and seminars in EMSA using a professional-quality camera and Adobe Photoshop.
• Assist in the preparation of short video clips for social media.
• Assist in the preparation of web pages and online projects.

Profile 2:

• Assist in the public information tasks of the communication team, including in the organisation and preparation of visits by members of the public.
• Assist in handling public information requests.
• Assist in the communication aspects of events held at EMSA or elsewhere in the EU. 

Diploma required: Graphic design, communication, multimedia.

2. Unit 1.1 - Sustainability

Tasks and duties of the trainee:

• Assist in the preparation of the European Maritime Transport Environmental Report (review drafts, check metadata, design of relevant graphs and infographs for publication).
• Assist in the drafting of the annual implementation report of the Sulphur Directive.
• Support the coordination of the IMO working group on the Fuel lifecycle assessment and Fuels standards (analysis of submissions, consolidation of input and drafting the report for the MEPC sessions).
• Assist in the updating of the MAR CIS application and other projects related to the hazards linked to the transportation of chemicals

Diploma required: Scientific studies, chemistry; Environmental engineering with a focus on decarbonization.

Advantageous: Knowledge and experience of ICT tools relevant to the performance of the tasks and duties described: Microsoft Office. Excellent knowledge of Excel and other data management and analysis tools (e.g. Power BI).

3. Unit 1.2 - Visits & Inspections, Human Element

Tasks and duties of the trainee: Assist the Project Officers in the:

• Preparation of visits and inspections to Member States and third countries.
• Drafting of visits and inspection reports.
• Preparation and organisation of meetings at the IMO and European level related to the comprehensive review of the STCW Convention.
• Preparation and organisation of other technical meetings on the human element.
• Data collection and drafting of the annual seafarers’ overview report.
• Drafting of statistics.
• Completion of other tasks assigned to the human element team, for instance, on the EU Seafarers’ Certification Platform.

Diploma required: Maritime studies (navigation, marine engineering, etc); Maritime Law; Maritime Economics; Naval Architecture.

Advantageous: Working knowledge of other languages, be a team player, be open to multicultural teams and environment, international experience.

4. Unit 1.3 - Capacity Building

Tasks and duties of the trainee:

• Assisting the analytics team in the preparation of business intelligence and data management tools for the various EMSA databases.
• Creating reports, dashboards and other user interfaces relevant for analytics and statistics purposes.
• Assisting the analytics team in the statistical analysis of various maritime data.
• Assisting the analytics team in the maintenance and updating of the EU Maritime Profile, and other data projects and reports published for the public, for internal use and other maritime safety stakeholders.
• Assisting in the automatic data extraction and data import from various databases to specific reports and user interfaces.

Diploma required: Mathematics, Statistics, Data Analysis, Computer science or Engineering (advantageous if ICT oriented, or with an exposure to data analysis, data visualization, databases, web-based data visualization, analytics and statistics, web design), or other degree with strong quantitative analysis content.

Advantageous: Operational knowledge of Power BI and/or other Business Intelligence programs, R, Python, SQL, oracle databases, data extraction techniques, data analysis, artificial intelligence.

5. Unit 2.1 - Safety & Security

Tasks and duties of the trainee: The trainee will be involved in the EMCIP business management carrying out the following:

• Conducting functional tests and helpdesk.
• Reporting tickets in Jira.
• Following up the requests for support from the user community.
• Preparing the operational documentation.
• A secondary task will be to get involved in the preparatory work of the ROV operations on an ad hoc basis.

Diploma required: ICT background / business administration.

6. Unit 2.2 Surveillance

Tasks and duties of the trainee:

• Draft RPAS operational and performance statistics.
• Contribute to RPAS reporting, preparation of publications, infographics, web, etc. 
• Support the organisation of meetings and awareness sessions, and in particular the RPAS User Group meeting.
• Support the work of the RPAS team where required.

Diploma required: Engineering, sciences or economics.

Advantageous: Proficiency in Microsoft tools (MS Excel and MS Word); Knowledge of Geographical Information Systems.

7. Unit 3.1 - Maritime Digital Services

Tasks and duties of the trainee: Participation in development and operation of Integrated Maritime Services (IMS) that combine maritime data from different reporting/tracking and surveillance systems to provide a comprehensive maritime picture, including: 

• Daily management of applications under IMS for Member States
  • Supporting business validation, bug identification and reporting, data stewarding and data quality reporting.
  • Preparing answers to user questions, following defined Incident Handling Procedures.
  • Following-up on tickets resolution status.
• Supporting new developments delivery:
  • Reviewing project documentation and update as needed (e.g. training manuals).
  • Performing testing and validation of new releases.
  • Supporting the consolidation and organization of the project delivery documentation according to EMSA standards (e.g. update project online).
• Support to data extraction requests as needed.

Diploma required: Maritime (transport) management; Ship or Ship Operation technologies, Engineering, or Informatics, Electronics, Information Technology, and related areas of knowledge.

Advantageous: Good sense of initiative and responsibility; Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds; Proven relevant professional experience in the maritime or fisheries or maritime situational awareness or related domain; Knowledge of IT application development; Knowledge of ticket tracking applications such as JIRA. 

8. Unit 3.2 - Digital Infrastructure - Maritime Support Services (MSS)

Tasks and duties of the trainee: The MSS trainee will support the daily operations of the MSS under the supervision of the Maritime Support Services Officers on duty. These operations could be:

• Data quality reports on the SSN data provided by MS (e.g. port checks or Hazmat checks).
• Data extraction and reports linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war (e.g. Weekly report on the impact of developments in Ukraine on maritime traffic or the daily Monitoring of Agricultural Products Exports from Ukraine).
• Reporting on maritime accidents and monitoring newswires.
• Other tasks related to the MSS duties (e.g., weekly Frontex report or follow of vessels not transmitting LRIT positions).

Diploma required: By order of priority: Nautical Science (Mate/Master) OR Naval Engineering; Computer Sciences or Engineering IT diploma OR Engineering in general.

Advantageous: Computer skills (mainly MS Office), Power BI, databases SQL or equivalent  and Geographical information systems (ARCGIS). Relevant drafting skills.

9. Unit 3.3 - Simplification

Tasks and duties of the trainee: The trainee will support the development of the EMSA Operational Services to EU Institutions including Europol, MAOC (N), EFCA, Frontex, and EUNAVFOR. This will involve a period of familiarisation with the legal and operational context as well as how the relationship with Institutional users is implemented at EMSA e.g. from gathering business requirements from users to bringing those Integrated Maritime Information (IMS) requirements in operation in the SafeSeaNet Ecosystem GUI (SEG).

The trainee will be expected to undertake a number of activities including:

• Assisting in the preparation of material to support the user experience. This could include updating the Service Requirement documentation for all EU Institution IMS operations, associated manuals, video tutorials on IMS as well as other related material.
• Assisting in the test and validation campaigns of the abovementioned IMS services.

Diploma required: Any related to maritime or engineering or science

Advantageous: Maritime knowledge/Geographical Information Systems/SQL/Legal.

10. Unit 4.1 - Human Resources & Internal Support

Tasks and duties of the trainee:

• Assisting in the preparation of professional missions ensuring that the relevant rules and procedures in place are respected
• Encoding of mission claims on behalf of the staff member making sure that the Mission Guide is respected
• Calculating mission costs and reimbursements
• Assisting in administrative tasks linked to mission procedures
• Assisting in other tasks of the Unit if needed

Diploma required: Tourism, Public Administration, Finance or in any other related to the tasks to be performed.

Advantageous: Good organisational and communication skills, ability to work in a team, knowledge of Excel.

11. Unit 4.2 - Legal, Finance & Facilities

Tasks and duties of the trainee: To provide assistance to the Legal section in Unit 4.2 in the following areas:

• Preparation of legal and procurement related documentation following the update of Procurement templates, rules and manuals;
• Assistance in development and/or revisions of the internal legal framework;
• Assistance in the verification of procurement files;
• Assistance in the e-procurement procedures;
• Assistance in maintaining the contract archive;
• Assistance in preparing training presentations and other training materials;
• Updates of the Court cases.

Diploma required: Master of Laws in European/Administrative/Business Law related fields.

Advantageous: Proficiency in Word, good knowledge of PowerPoint.

Please note that sickness insurance is compulsory. Candidates must provide a certificate proving health insurance cover: private/public insurance or the European Health Insurance Card. The cover must be valid for the whole period of the traineeship.

The trainees will be awarded a monthly grant of €1,280.15 and a travel allowance as indicated in the above-mentioned decision, if applicable.

Candidates must submit their application electronically solely via the EMSA website within the deadline. Applications by any other means (hard copy or ordinary e-mail) or submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.

When completing their application, candidates must indicate two units as a first and second option as preference for the traineeship. All candidates will receive an acknowledgement of receipt for their application.

In addition to this, and once the acknowledgement of receipt has been received, candidates need to send a copy of all the University Diploma/s or relevant official certificate/s declared in the application (self-certifications are not accepted) by e-mail to the following address: traineeship@emsa.europa.eu with the following subject: EMSA/TRA/2023/02 – SURNAME/S Name/s by the deadline for applications.

Only complete applications will be taken into consideration. No application will be considered if a University Diploma/s or relevant official certificate/s has not been sent to the Traineeship mailbox: traineeship@emsa.europa.eu by the deadline for applications.

Females applicants are encouraged to apply, EMSA seeks to attain at least 60% of female trainees on our Traineeship Programme.

The closing date for application for the traineeship program is 26 May 2023 at 17.00 (Lisbon Time).

Please be informed that EMSA reserves the right to modify the foreseen start and/or end dates of traineeships or to cancel them should circumstances so require. Candidates should also be aware that teleworking arrangements may also need to be put in place for some period of the traineeship, again depending upon the situation at the time.

For each traineeship intake, a Selection Committee (SC) is created. The work of the SC is confidential, and applicants must refrain from contacting the members of the SC. The SC will set up a list of eligible candidates and send the list to the different EMSA entities for selection.

Once candidates have been selected by the relevant EMSA entities, the trainees' nomination is confirmed by the Executive Director.

There is no appeal procedure. Upon receipt of the application, the SC will examine all the applications based on the criteria established for the intake, as published on the Agency's website.

Candidates can be contacted over the phone or by videocall by the recruiting Units to check availability and to discuss mutual expectations prior to the final selection decision.

Candidates can also be invited for an interview or to take part in a written test. All candidates will be informed of the outcome of their application.

If an application is unsuccessful, candidates may re-apply for another traineeship period. It is, however, necessary to submit a new application together with all the supporting documents within the new deadline.

At any stage of the application process, applicants may withdraw their application by informing the Agency by mail to the address stated on the website.

EMSA respects the privacy of its trainees and processes applicants personal data in line with Regulation (EC) 2018/1725 of 23 October 2018. Personal information requested in the context of the traineeship is processed in line with the Data Protection Privacy Statement on the processing of personal data in the context of Selection of Trainees at EMSA as available on the EMSA website.