Testimonial by Irene Cresci, Trainee from March to July 2026.
Doing a traineeship at Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue office was an extremely valuable experience. I had the chance to work on a broad range of tasks and policy areas, together with a brilliant and caring team.
The traineeship enabled me to strengthen my policy analysis skills. For my capstone project, I conducted a 3 Questions interview on the European Pillar of Social Rights and wrote a commentary on EU policies for a Just Transition. I was involved in the work of the Knowledge Community on fair participation in the EU’s energy transition, by monitoring EU energy and social policy.
Besides policy analysis, I gained experience in project management, event organisation, and communications. Key examples included helping coordinating the launch of a report on democratic governance for tech companies and an expert roundtable on social spending in the next Multiannual Financial Framework, as well as supporting the editorial team of the Energy Transition Blog. Working across the team's activities also allowed me to explore topics beyond my core expertise, ranging from green monetary and industrial policy, to foreign policy and digital policy.
It was exciting to stay up to date with the policy debates in Brussels and connect with a variety of organisations in the EU bubble.