• to gain practical experience relevant to the IBP competency profile by working for a public or private, profit or non-profit organization
• to develop a balanced, critical and reflexive understanding of the internship organization and the economic, political and social context within which it is situated
• to identify International Business and Politics-related challenges or issues that are related to the internship organization
• to develop the ability to place the identified issues within the relevant academic literature
• to draw upon relevant theoretical insights and perspectives from the IBP curriculum so as to analyze critically a problem or issue derived from this experience
• to critically reflect on the selected theories and their appropriateness in the light of the identified problem or issue
• to select, execute, and defend an appropriate research design to analyze the selected problem or issue, including the collection and analysis of empirical data
• to arrive, on the basis of the analysis, at a set of feasible recommendations that address the given problem

The eligibility of proposed internships is evaluated by the supervisor on the basis of two criteria:

1. The relevance of the host organization.

In line with the focus of the study program, the activities of the host organization must be related to one of the IBP core areas. The core areas of the IBP programs are politics, business and management, economics and law.
 

1. The relevance of the internship position.

The second requirement is that the student’s responsibilities during the internship must be related to the IBP competency profile. The description of tasks and responsibilities must be clear stated in the internship application.

A 30 ECTS internship report should contain:
 

a. a research question related to the host organization

b. an extensive, systematic review of academic literature relevant to the chosen problem

c. the specification of a research design to examine the chosen problem

d. an empirical analysis of the chosen problem on the basis of the student’s research design

e. a discussion of the implications of the analysis for one or more of the theoretical approaches considered on IBP

f. extensive recommendations on how this issue can be addressed

g. a critical reflection on the quality of the answers produced.