As of the end of July, Justine Koffi and Maxime Schoch finish their traineeship at SwissCore and have to say goodbye to Brussels.
It has been six months since we have both moved to Brussels and started our work at SwissCore! We are now looking back to a great time full of interesting work experiences and discovering this vibrant city and the European Union (EU) institutions located here. Going to conferences and events, writing reports and articles and (occasionally) engaging in the public after work gathering on Thursday in front of the European Parliament (Plux) – just to name some of the activities we did during our time here. Furthermore, we enjoyed working with our informal group of RTD liaison offices (IGLO) in Brussels i.e. practicing our Spanish, being provided with (free) food from different countries and discovering Belgian beer culture together!
At the time of her entry, Justine was completing her Master’s degree in Public Administration and Policy with a minor in Political Science at the Swiss Graduate Institute of Public Administration. At SwissCore, she worked on European education policy, including the next Erasmus+ (2021-2027) programme. She also focused on a project on the Digital Europe programme’s approach to increase advanced digital skills provision (i.e. skills in artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity (CS) and high-performance computing (HPC)). In September, Justine will conclude and defend her Master’s thesis on the topic of a policy transfer in advanced digital skills, between Switzerland and the EU.
At the time of her entry, Maxime held a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics with a specialisation in Economic and Political EU Integration from the University of Zurich. During her time at SwissCore, she was working on a project analysing the contribution of research and innovation (R&I) policy towards achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The project contained an analysis of the coverage of the SDGs within the next generation EU R&I framework programme, Horizon Europe. She got the chance to publicly present the findings of her project at an IGLO Open in Brussels and to Swiss stakeholders in Bern. You can find the slides of the presentation here and the full report here. In September, Maxime will start a Master in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics (LSE).
We would like to thank SwissCore for these wonderful six months! We enjoyed having our colleagues in our trainee office for those nice chats, the BBQs and afterworks on Place Jourdan with Frites from Maison Antoine (the best fritterie in town, according to Ms Angela Merkel). We will miss the team dearly and wish all the best for SwissCore in the future and hope that we will see you again very soon in Brussels!