Internships
Gateway House offers internships for graduate students or graduates, proficient in English, pursuing a career in international relations or a related field. Interns will be assigned to Editorial & Content, Operations, or Research Departments and work on various projects to support the institution.
Gateway House Internship Programme
Due to the large volume of applications, only those applicants who are shortlisted will be contacted for an interview.
Minimum Requirements:
• Bachelor’s degree in international affairs/political science/economics/history
• Minimum duration of 90 days, with possibility of extension
• Must be willing to work in Mumbai
Please submit a Curriculum Vitae along with a covering letter indicating your interest in Gateway House and motivations for working with us, to jobs@gatewayhouse.in. Please include the name of the position in the subject of your email.
Internship Testimonials
“Gateway House stands at the crossroads of business and policy, providing a platform for a freshly minted graduate to learn about diverse fields. Being an intern with the Meetings and Membership Department exposed me to Mumbai’s business and foreign policy intelligentsia and to learn how to think about how they intersect. Meetings are centred around themes across all the focus areas of the organisation. I was part of a team that organised over 30 meetings during my time there, which included round-tables, and closed and public policy discussions. Such events enabled me to greatly increase my knowledge and hone my communication skills. Creating international policy trip agendas also facilitated an intensified understanding of regions that I was previously unfamiliar with.
Gateway House receives important visitors, including leading scholars from reputed institutions based all over the world. To interact with them is ideal training ground for a young professional seeking a career in IR.”
– Sanna Bedi, 2014
Master’s Candidate, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (2018)
Currently: Gender Initiative Fellow at TechnoServe
“I spent around three months at Gateway House as a research intern part way through my graduate studies. My personal and academic experience mostly concerned East Asia, North America and Western Europe, which can give one quite a blinkered view of foreign affairs. (Focus on the China-U.S. relationship is an example). Living and working in India, and for Gateway House, helped me acquire a new perspective. I learnt as much from my three months in India as I did from my classes back at graduate school. I developed ideas from my time at Gateway House that I continue to rely upon and refine today.
Gateway House also trusted me to lead a real research project during my time there: researching and mapping illegal financial flows into India. This was important work experience I could point to when applying for jobs after finishing my studies.”
– Nicholas Gordon, 2014
MPhil, International Relations, Oxford University (2015)
Currently: Researcher at Global Institute For Tomorrow, Hong Kong
“I came to Gateway House as a fresh graduate, looking to gain some research and data collection skills – which is distinct from academic research. The internship experience at Gateway House helped me step ‘into’ the think tank and foreign policy world and learn the office skills necessary to perform the administrative tasks given to me since leaving Gateway House.
On the research front, getting involved in Gateway House’s projects was rewarding. Working on Chinese overseas investment in Nepal and Sri Lanka helped me understand infrastructure development in the region and the politics behind it.
The greatest challenge for me during my three months at Gateway House was to notice – but not be able to act against – gendered roles being played out discreetly in Indian society.”
– Lina Lee, 2016
MSc, Contemporary India, Oxford University (2016)
Currently: Political Researcher at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Dhaka, Bangladesh
“My internship was an ideal opportunity to get an impression of India’s outlook on the world. For me, the weekly staff discussions on regional and global issues–from Pakistan to Brexit–were the highlight of my time at Gateway House. The staff was very helpful, explaining Indian foreign policy and politics to me.
As part of a team project on India-EU cooperation, I learnt how to think about the EU from the outside–perhaps a little unnatural for a Dutch student! But I had come as a student of Chinese Studies with a focus on foreign policy, and during my time in Mumbai, I wrote an article on China’s response to the South China Sea ruling, which was published on the Gateway House website. The internship led me to write my Master’s thesis at Peking University on China’s perception of India’s Act East Policy. I now work for China Policy, a research advisory in Beijing, where I track Chinese commentary on international issues.
India will be crucial in shaping Asia’s future, but is sometimes (surprisingly) overlooked in international relations curricula, not least in China. Developing an awareness of Indian views at Gateway House was a very useful way of filling this gap, and it has shaped my own outlook of the world.”
– Joost van Deutekom, 2016
MPhil, Modern China Studies, Oxford University (2016)
Currently: Policy analyst at China Policy, Beijing
“I joined Gateway House in October 2016, straight after a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Durham, U.K. I – like most internship applicants – came, eager to do research in foreign policy, but ended up involving myself in all the other aspects of a think tank as well, including outreach, HR, membership and meetings. Every role here involves some research and analytical thinking. ‘Operations’ or ‘Ops’ – as opposed to ‘Research’ – is not administration alone. I was part of the team, organising Gateway House’s flagship event, its annual geoeconomics conference in February-March – from helping put together the delegates’ and speakers’ lists to handling the logistics down to the last detail. Gateway House is a small, flat organisation, with few intermediaries to report to. An intern can learn directly from the top brass.
The year I spent at Gateway House, first as intern, and then a member of the staff, helped me narrow down my research interests and become clearer about what I wanted to do. Since I studied management at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, before going to Durham, what I learnt here was a perfect blend of corporate work and IR, a combination I want to pursue in the future too.”
– Preksha Dugar, 2016-2017
MA, International/Global Studies, Durham University (2016)