Internships/PhD Programme – Policy Forecasting and Modelling – Frankfurt am Main

The European Central Bank (ECB) is offering full-time internships in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), within the Forecasting and Policy Modelling Division. This opportunity is aimed at students, recent graduates and PhD candidates with an interest in macroeconomics, modelling, data analysis and research applied to public policy.

Profile:

• A background in economics, statistics, finance, data science, applied mathematics, computer science or related fields.
• An interest in macroeconomics, monetary economics, modelling and economic forecasting.
• Candidates with strong quantitative and programming skills.
• An interest in applied research and public policy.
• Ability to work with large datasets and analytical tools.
• Motivation to work in an international and multicultural environment.

Requirements:

• Basic:
  • Citizenship of a Member State of the European Union.
  • For the €2,120 grant: a master’s degree and at least two years of doctoral study in a relevant field.
  • For the €1,170 grant: a bachelor’s degree or higher qualification in a relevant field.
  • Applicants for the PhD programme must also submit a two-page summary of their research programme, explaining its relevance to the Division.
  • Practical experience of working on projects involving large amounts of data and knowledge of international macroeconomic and financial databases.
  • Programming experience, preferably with MATLAB, Python or R.
  • Knowledge of macroeconomic modelling and/or machine learning and deep learning techniques.
  • Good command of MS Office, Excel and data visualisation tools.
  • C1 level inEnglish and B1 level in at least one other official EU language.
• Desirable:
  • For the €1,170 scholarship, candidates must have completed at least one year of a Master’s degree.
  • Solid knowledge of macroeconomics and monetary economics.
  • Experience with Git and version control.
  • A thesis, research paper or project demonstrating advanced skills in quantitative modelling or data processing.
  • Knowledge of SQL, databases, cloud computing or NoSQL.
  • Experience in software development, automated testing, containerisation or machine learning engineering.

Responsibilities of the successful candidate:

• Develop and maintain macroeconomic models for the euro area and its main countries.
• Programme mathematical, statistical and econometric tools.
• Contribute to the macroeconomic projections of the ECB and the Eurosystem.
• Work with economic, financial, monetary, textual and unstructured data.
• Develop analysis and modelling tools.
• Take part in research and quantitative analysis projects for reports and working papers.
• Work with DSGE, HANK and semi-structural models , time series analysis, machine learning and deep learning.

Benefits:

• €1,170 per month for undergraduate internships.
• €2,120 per month for the programme aimed at those with a master’s degree or undertaking doctoral studies.
• Accommodation allowance.
• 6-month placement, extendable to 12 months.
• Professional experience at the ECB and the opportunity to work alongside specialist economists.
• Development of skills in programming, modelling, data analysis and research.
• Opportunity to work on projects directly linked to economic policy-making.

Application deadline: 20 October 2026.

 

More information: European Central Bank