Internship: Executive leadership support and communication

Europe

Denmark

Copehnagen

National contract

25 Nov 2025

11 Dec 2025

174821

Do you want to practice your communication skills to a worldwide audience within the humanitarian sector and support our top management on leadership communication and day-to-day support? Then you might be our new intern for the spring semester 2026.

Who are we?

You will be part of the Secretary General's office in the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), which is a small dynamic team supporting the Secretary General, the Executive Management Team, the Board of Directors, and the Council of DRC. The office also supports DRC's overall organizational processes and its overall strategy, provides management and administrative support to the Secretary General, and organizes global staff meetings. The office works and coordinates closely with headquarters as well as DRC offices across the world.

In this role, you will also work closely with the global communications colleagues, which work on a broad range of communication activities, e.g. writing case stories targeted our global workforce, creating internal and external campaigns, assisting at global events and much more.

About the internship

As an intern in the Secretary General's Office and Global Communications, you will get the chance to collaborate closely with various DRC colleagues in both headquarters, regions and countries across our four core humanitarian sectors: Protection, Economic Recovery, Humanitarian Disarmament & Peacebuilding, and WASH, Shelter & Infrastructure.

You will get first-hand experience with the work and decision-making within an international NGO, learn and practice tools and strategies for efficient leadership communication (within the organization and to external audiences).

The internship offers the opportunity to:

• Gain experience working for an international NGO;
• Work independently with different tasks related to communications, leadership support, and other tasks relevant to your profile and area of study;
• Learn how to work professionally with internal communications and leadership support in an international organization
• Be a part of a dynamic house with many relations to our countries and regions.

You will be supporting colleagues while gaining valuable working experience.

You will also be invited to participate in one week of induction to gain a better understanding of the different teams and departments within DRC.

Responsibilities

As part of both the Secretary General's Office and the Global Communication team, you will support the dissemination of strategic messaging and decisions across the organization with a variety of methods and through different channels, while also supporting the Secretary General on more administrative tasks. Therefore, we expect you to:

• Participate in content planning regarding strategic decisions, including both minutes writing and editing for a broader audience.
• Help organize global meetings and events as well as produce communication products and minutes of the meetings.
• Communicate with country offices to gather stories, interviews and photographs that can both be used for strategic internal and external communication.
• Gather and edit staff portraits from our country operations together with your colleagues in Global Communications.
• Support the day-to-day work of the Secretary General's Office, including drafting of minutes, preparations for meetings and travels.
• Work closely together with the Executive Assistant to the Secretary General and the Internal Communications Advisor, as well as other members of the teams.

We offer flexibility in the priorities, meaning that you have the possibility to influence the tasks subject to what is relevant for your area of study.

About you

You should be able to work both individually and together with other colleagues. All employees and interns in DRC should master DRC's core competencies: communicating, taking the lead, collaborating, striving for excellence and demonstrating integrity.

You should be able to meet the following requirements:

• Be enlisted at a university for a relevant education at the university (this is a prerequisite for the internship). You should be pursuing a bachelor's or master's degree in communications, Journalism, Development Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Migration studies or other related social science studies. Students with an interest in journalism or other communication areas will have an advantage.
• Have good communication and writing skills and an interest in strengthening these.
• Be fluent in both written and spoken English – professional proficiency in Danish, French or Spanish is an asset but not a requirement.
• Be effective in the use of MS Office and preferably MS 365 (Sharepoint etc.).
• Have good collaboration and interpersonal skills.
• Be able to work systematically with a good structure for the tasks that you are responsible for.
• Have an eye for detail and strive to get the job done.

We offer

Contract length: 4-6 months subject to study requirements and further dialogue.

Workplace: DRC Headquarters located Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen.

Start date: Ideally end of January/beginning of February 2026 or the soonest thereafter. We can be flexible on the start date.

Working hours: Approximately 32 hours per week, subject to study requirements and further dialogue. We offer flexibility when you have study obligations next to the internship.

The internship is not paid but we offer:

• 2,08 (unpaid) vacation days per month. The days can either be spent as you earn them or be accumulated.
• Free lunch in our canteen (subject to our canteen being open).
• Free participation in our Summer/Winter party (subject to dates)

Please note that if you do not have the right to work in Denmark (through nationality or existing work visa), you will need to apply for it should you be selected for the internship. DRC will support with the process, but please note it can take up to three months from initiating the process. You can read more here.

Application process

All applicants must send a cover letter, an updated CV in English as well as documentation that you are enrolled in a university. If you are applying for more than one internship with DRC, please indicate so in your cover letter. Apply online on our Current Vacancies page at

Closing date for applications: 11 December 2025. We expect to conduct interviews during the following weeks.

Further information

For questions regarding the internship please contact Marianne Smedegaard Hansen,

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website