Intern, for a research project “The Kiel Military Procurement Tracker”

Internship

Intern, for a research project “The Kiel Military Procurement Tracker”

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy is looking for an Intern (m/f/div), full-time (38.7h/week) or part-time for our research project “The Kiel Military Procurement Tracker”, ideally starting in December 2026. The position can be based in Kiel or in Berlin and can be carried out remotely.

We are a policy and research-oriented team working on defence economics, European rearmament, and the fiscal and industrial dimensions of security policy. Our work combines original data collection with economic analysis and feeds directly into the European policy debate.

The intern will actively participate in the further development of the Kiel Military Procurement Tracker, a dataset that systematically and comparably records military procurement by European countries. Building and extending this database will constitute a big part of the project. The data underpin the Kiel Report series and our policy work on how European defence procurement can become faster, cheaper and more innovative.

Your Role:

• Involvement in a research project with high political relevance and visibility in the European defence policy debate
• The opportunity to build data pipelines from scratch and to shape how the tracker is collected, validated and published
• Insights into quantitative work and state-of-the-art research, using Python, R, Stata and modern tooling for web scraping and LLM-based information extraction
• An open and international work environment in a team of motivated researchers, research assistants and interns
• Attendance of various Kiel Institute seminars and participation, upon agreement, in courses offered by the Kiel Institute's Advanced Studies Program (ASP) and Kiel Institute summer schools
• Flexible working arrangements: full-time (38.7h/week) or part-time, based at our Kiel or Berlin office or fully remote.

Your Profile:

We are looking for a student who

• has a sound academic background in economics, data science, computer science, political science, international relations, security studies or a related field
• has practical experience with web scraping and with collecting data from unstructured sources (HTML, PDF, tender portals, APIs)
• has solid programming skills in Python (R or Stata are also welcome), exceeding the knowledge gained in a university class
• is familiar with modern, AI-assisted approaches to data collection — for example using large language models to parse and structure documents — or is eager to learn them quickly
• works accurately and in a structured manner, and understands that a procurement database depends on careful source documentation and validation
• is motivated and proactive and does not hesitate to propose ideas to move the project forward
• is able to think critically and independently and perform tasks responsibly and reliably
• has an interest in the work of the Kiel Institute and in defence economics, European security and industrial policy
• has very good English language skills. German language skills are not required but are an asset when working with German-language procurement documents. 

We are offering

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy values diversity. We welcome applications regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic and social origin, religion/belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The Kiel Institute is an equal opportunity employer with a certified family-friendly policy. We promote the professional opportunities of women and strongly encourage them to apply. Women with equivalent qualifications, competence and expertise will be given preference. We are committed to employing persons with recognized disabilities and will therefore give them preference over persons without disabilities if they are equally qualified. We welcome all applications, regardless of nationality, ethnic and social origin, religion/belief, age and sexual orientation.

Information on the application:

Please submit your application online via the application form on our website using ID-No. “11_26_Intern_MPT_01” and your family name as file name. 

Please include:

• Cover letter (please explain your interest in the position and where you gained your data collection and programming skills)
• CV (including your current GPA)
• Your most recent university transcript in German or English
• A short example of your own work with data or code, such as a GitHub link or a scraper you have written, if available
• Reference letters, if available
• Application photos should not be included.

Please note that you must be enrolled as a student to be considered for this position.

We only consider applications received via our online tool. Applications sent via email will not be considered.

In order to be eligible for this position you have to hold EU citizenship or need to be able to provide a work permit that is valid throughout the time of your contract. Please inform yourself about the work permit application procedure and eligibility before you apply to this internship position and be aware that the application procedure for a work permit might take up to three months.

The internship position is limited to three months. Please indicate your availability and preferred duration, whether you apply for a full-time or a part-time internship, and your preferred working location (Kiel, Berlin or remote).

For additional information, please contact Johannes Binder.

For questions regarding this position please contact

• Johannes Binder

  Kiel Institute Researcher

  +49 (431) 8814-0

  Johannes.Binder@kielinstitut.de

At a glance

full-time (38.7h/week) or part-time, limited to three months

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remote, or based at the Kiel or Berlin office

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active participation in the further development of the Kiel Military Procurement Tracker

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focus on web scraping, AI-assisted data collection and data validation

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ideal start: December 2026

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ID-No. “11_26_Intern_MPT_01”

Application Form 

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