A key role for the Climate Centre in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is to foster evidence-based knowledge that informs action on the ground and provides a basis for good decision-making through close academic collaborations.
This includes engagement in our internship programme with young academics who are enrolled in a master’s- or PhD-level course at university. Our interns are a diverse community of learners from all disciplines and backgrounds, as is our team itself.
We offer three- to six-month placements to successful candidates, who are supervised throughout their work on with current projects and research within our priority areas by the relevant technical expert; we also offer a small stipend.
Specific or specialist vacancies for interns are advertised on this page (see links below).
Short placements for young academics
Hannah Sizelove
Hannah interned with the Climate Centre for four months in 2020, from her US base evaluating the extent to which heatwaves qualify for humanitarian financing in (alphabetically) Bangladesh, Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam.
She contributed to a policy brief, presented research at the Red Cross Red Crescent virtual climate summit, and supported the expansion of public awareness videos and a question and answer system powered by artificial intelligence. She also initiated monthly video calls by our junior researchers around the world.
More on HannahTestimonies
“I gained valuable experience working on climate and health as well as social protection. One of the standout aspects of the Climate Centre is the approachability of the team: they are genuinely interested in helping interns learn and make the most out of their internship” – Abhinav Banthiya (India, 2023)
“I have learned so much with the Climate Centre and it has been a great introduction to the humanitarian field” – Hannah Forkell (US, 2020)
“The Climate Centre understands what you want to learn in your internship, and it really delivers in trying to achieve those goals” – Maya Adams
(Uganda, 2020)
Erin Coughlan de Perez
Erin Coughlan de Perez interned in the summer of 2011 and later joined our science team full-time. She single-handedly developed the forecast-based financing methodology as part of her doctoral thesis in climate risk management, rolled out in Uganda (picture), and is also now a Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II report on climate impacts.
“The Climate Centre enabled me to work at the intersection of science, policy, and practice, which has given depth and relevance to my research,” she says. Boston-based Erin is now Dignitas Professor at Tufts University.
More on Erin
Linking science and humanitarian work around the world
Two master’s students, Carolina Pereira Marghidan and John Ifejube, talk about their internships at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente, Netherlands. Carolina embarked on an extraordinary internship at the Climate Centre, while John interned with 510, also part of the Red Cross and named after the 510 million square kilometres of the earth’s surface. (Video: Seddle/University of Twente)
Internships at ITC