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WHO WE ARE

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) was established in 1975 as the European Union’s external auditor. One of the EU’s seven institutions, it is based in Luxembourg and employs around 1000 audit, support and administrative staff of all EU nationalities.

The ECA operates as a collegiate body of 27 Members, one from each EU member state. Our auditors check that the EU keeps good accounts and correctly applies its financial rules, and that its policies and programmes achieve their intended objectives and deliver value for money.

Through our work, we contribute to improving the EU’s financial management and promote accountability and transparency. We warn of risks, provide assurance, indicate shortcomings and successes and offer guidance to EU policymakers and legislators. We present our observations and recommendations to the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and national governments and parliaments, as well as the general public.

We are a modern and dynamic organisation striving for and promoting excellence, professionalism, transparency and integrity. We define ourselves as a diverse, flexible and equitable institution, which offers every individual the opportunity to maximise their talent. Through our individual and collective involvement in the ECA’s activities and our ambitious training programme, our aim is to make the ECA an intellectually stimulating workplace, and a learning-based organisation that relies on institutional knowledge and motivated and welltrained people to serve the EU and its citizens.

We are an EU institution on a human scale: this facilitates integration, allows for easier interaction, and encourages teamwork. We offer flexible working hours and opportunities for teleworking, including from outside the place of residence1. We value diversity and inclusion, promote equal opportunities, and ensure a respectful working environment based on open communication, dialogue, and mutual trust. Staff engagement, well-being and greening are important pillars of our internal policies.

The ECA is divided into ten audit and administrative directorates functioning with flexible taskbased teams.

The audit chambers deal with different policy areas, as listed below. Staff are assigned to a chamber and to specific tasks according to the priorities that stem from the ECA work programme.
- Chamber I - Sustainable use of natural resources
- Chamber II - Investment for cohesion, growth and inclusion
- Chamber III - External action, security and justice
- Chamber IV - Regulation of markets and competitive economy
- Chamber V - Financing and administering the Union

The Directorate for Quality Control helps the ECA achieve the highest standards of quality in its professional output and has responsibilities in the areas of quality review, quality assurance, audit methodology, audit tools and support, and standard setting activities. The Directorate includes the DATA team that provides support to auditors in the areas of data science, IT audit, robotic automation process and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for audit.

The Directorate for Information Technology, Workplace and Innovation helps the ECA to achieve its strategic objectives through activity in the following areas: information technologies, technological innovation, physical workspace, library and archive services. DIWI is committed to the digital transformation of the ECA and the modernisation of the physical workplace. To this end, its activity is grounded in a dynamic vision of the future of work based on connecting people and facilitating knowledge management.

WHAT WE ARE OFFERING

The ECA is launching this call aiming at attracting recent graduates or doctoral students, giving them a unique opportunity to gain their first working and learning experience in an EU institution. The selected applicants will work on pre-determined projects in the area of artificial intelligence and related disciplines relevant for AI projects.

Each participant will be under the supervision of a staff member who will act as a mentor and provide support, advice and guidance.

This call aims at establishing a reserve list of 5 applicants who may be recruited as trainees for a 6-month period, renewable for a maximum period of 6 months if the interests of the service so require.

The monthly allowance is 2 500 euros. However, if the trainees receive an allowance from another entity (for example, a university or an education body), the ECA will grant them only the difference until 2 500 euros.

WHAT TASKS YOU CAN EXPECT TO PERFORM

The recruited trainees will work with auditors and professionals from the DATA team and from the Directorate for Information Technology, Workplace and Innovation. Their tasks may include:

• analyse and document how AI can be used to improve typical audit activities such as document summarisation, information extraction from large datasets, analysis of open text answers from surveys;
• analyse and document how to best clean, transform and prepare the internal information about the ECA methodology (AWARE) to create an interactive chatbot based on it;
• perform scraping, cleaning, and preprocessing of datasets for AI models;
• study and document how the ECA could measure the accuracy, completeness and other performance metrics of a (generative) AI model;
• propose and help implementing improvements to the existing AI test and development infrastructure;
• analyse and document how AI could be used to automate specific workflow steps that today require human intervention (example: isolate relevant information from un-structured invoices);
• analyse and document how AI could be used to detect anomalies in large datasets;
• benchmark performance of various algorithms and AI models on specific datasets;
• help to build and run evaluation platforms for AI models;
• survey of AI models, tools and frameworks;
• test the infrastructure dedicated to generative AI models and frameworks; and
• contribute to the customization and optimization of AI models (example: RAG, prompt engineering)
• other relevant projects as needs arise.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
1. General requirements
Applicants must, on the date of their application:

• be nationals of one of the member states of the European Union2;
• have never benefited from a traineeship (paid or unpaid) at any EU institution, body or agency;
• have never been employed, neither in the past nor at the time of application, at an EU institution, body or agency as: a member of the temporary staff, contract staff or employment agency staff; a seconded national expert; or an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament.

2. Qualifications
By the closing date for applications, have completed university studies attested by a diploma (awarded in EU member states or that are subject to equivalence certificates issued by member state authorities), when the normal period of university education is 3 years or more, or be currently undertaking doctoral studies, in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Data Science, Information Technology or similar disciplines relevant for AI projects.

3. Knowledge of languages
Have a thorough knowledge of one official EU language and a satisfactory knowledge of at least one other official EU language; for the purposes of working on AI projects, a sound level of English is required (minimum level C1 in understanding, speaking and writing).

Please indicate in your CV the language level according to the following assessment model: https://europa.eu/europass/en/common-european-framework-reference

4. Skills

(a) General skills:
- ability to compile, synthesise and analyse information;
- good communication and interpersonal skills;
- flexibility to work in a task-based organisation, and an international environment;
- ability to work both independently and in a team; and
- ability to explain complex concepts to non-technical colleagues and managers.

(b) AI specific skills – in addition, applicants should demonstrate at least one of the following
AI relevant skills:
- general understanding of how generative AI works and how it can be applied to solve real-life problems;
- ability to critically interpret and understand the results provided by AIs;
- understanding of ethical concerns related to AI development and deployment;
- familiarity with at least one commercial AI tool: ChatGPT, MS Copilot, etc.
- knowledge on how to include AI elaborations in Python or R scripts via API calls to cloud and/or on-premises services;
- ability to review and summarise research papers on AI-related topics;
- familiarity with open-source software packages and programming languages for AI, machine learning or data science; and
- practical knowledge of AI technologies (Retrieval-Augmented Generation, prompt engineering, etc.), applications (Chatbox, Summarization, and Q&A engines) and frameworks (Open source LLMs, Azure, AWS).

PROCEDURE

(a) Eligibility check
Applications will be examined by a selection committee against the criteria mentioned under points 1, 2 and 3 of the “What we are looking for” section. Applicants who fail to satisfy any of these eligibility criteria will be excluded from the selection process.
The selection committee will draw up a list of eligible candidates who meet the aforementioned criteria.

(b) Assessment phase
The files of the eligible applicants will be examined by the selection committee, which will draw up a shortlist of the 10-best applicants3 on the basis of the following criteria:
- Level of studies;
- Relevance of academic background for the ECA’s work;
- Motivation for the position;
- Language skills;
- Examples provided relevant for AI specific skills;
- Other professional qualifications, certifications, and training relevant to the ECA’s work.

The shortlisted applicants will then be invited for an interview conducted by the selection committee. The interviews are designed to evaluate applicants’ skills and abilities for the relevant position, as listed in point 4, “Skills” of the “What we are looking for” section.

(c) Reserve list
Following the interviews, the selection committee will establish a reserve list of 5 applicants who best meet the requirements set out under “What we are looking for” section. Based on budget availability, the applicants on the reserve list will be offered a traineeship contract.

The reserve list will be valid until 31 December 2026, though it may be extended. The list will be published on the ECA’s website in alphabetical order.

The inclusion of applicants in the reserve list does not, in any way, constitute an entitlement to recruitment.

APPLICATIONS

The deadline for applications is 12 a.m. (midnight) Luxembourg time on 30 November 2025.

Applications must be drafted in English or French and sent by e-mail to the following address: ECA-AI-traineeships@eca.europa.eu 

Applications must comprise:

• a cover letter,
• an up-to-date CV, preferably in the ‘Europass’ format (see http://europa.eu/europass),
• a recommendation letter.

Any application received after the deadline will be rejected.

The selection committee will evaluate applications based solely on the information given in these documents. It may ask applicants to provide supporting evidence for statements made in their applications. If applicants fail to provide such evidence when it is requested, their applications will be rejected.

RECRUITMENT POLICY

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS

In line with its diversity and inclusion policy and Article 1d of the Staff Regulations, the ECA embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. We accept applications without discrimination on any grounds, and we take steps to ensure that recruitment is evenly balanced between women and men, as required by Article 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. We also take measures to reconcile working life with family life.

If you require any special arrangements for a specific disability in order to take part in this selection procedure, please indicate it in your application e-mail.

DATA PROTECTION

The ECA is committed to ensuring that applicants’ personal data are processed in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC.

For more information, see our specific privacy statement on recruitment at the following address: https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ECADocuments/Specific_Privacy_Statement_vacancies/Specific_Privacy_Statement_vacancies_EN.PDF

The reserve list containing the names of the applicants who meet the requirements set out in this call will be published on the ECA website. The list will remain on our website until it is no longer valid.

Prior to publication, the applicants whose names are included in the list will be given an opportunity to have their names removed from the published list by sending an email to ECA-AItraineeships@eca.europa.eu. Removing a name from the published list will have no impact on the consideration of that applicant for a possible selection.

REQUESTS FOR RECONSIDERATION — COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS — COMPLAINTS TO THE EUROPEAN OMBUDSMAN

If, at any stage in the selection procedure, you believe that a decision adversely affects you, the following options are available:

Request for the selection committee to reconsider its decision

You may submit a reasoned written request for reconsideration of a decision taken by the selection committee. Such a request must be submitted to the following address within 10 calendar days of notification of the decision, to ECA-Recours@eca.europa.eu. Where the last day of this period is a public holiday, Saturday or Sunday, the period shall end with the expiry of the last hour of the following working day.

Complaints

Under Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations, you may submit a written complaint against the ECA’s decision to reject your application within three months of being notified thereof, to the following address:

The Secretary-General
European Court of Auditors
12, rue Alcide De Gasperi
L-1615 Luxembourg
LUXEMBOURG

Judicial appeals

Under Article 91 of the Staff Regulations, you may appeal against a decision to reject your complaint, insofar as it adversely affects you, to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The action must be brought by a lawyer within three months of notification of the decision to reject the complaint.

Complaints to the European Ombudsman

If you believe that the handling of your application has involved maladministration by the ECA, you may submit a complaint to the European Ombudsman, having first contacted the ECA with a view to settling the dispute. You must submit your complaint in writing within two years of discovering the relevant facts. An electronic complaints form is available on the European Ombudsman’s website. Complaining to the European Ombudsman will not suspend the abovementioned appeal deadlines.