Experienced Project Assistant

Big Science Sweden; Genf; Hybrid; CHF 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

CERN is seeking a Project Assistant to join the Project Office, supporting HL-LHC and European projects within the ATS Directorate. You will drive coordination, governance, and reporting for strategic initiatives, engaging multiple stakeholders across departments.

The role emphasizes end-to-end project delivery, documentation control, and proactive issue resolution to meet milestones and deliverables on large-scale international studies.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree with 2–6 years of professional experience or a PhD with up to 3 years since graduation.
• Eligibility requires CERN Member State or Associate Member State nationality; no bachelor-only candidates.
• No prior CERN fellowship or graduate contract.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate and deliver complex European and strategic projects with planning, milestones, and risk oversight.
• Oversee technical reviews for the ATS Specification Committee and manage workflows and schedules.
• Maintain project plans, progress tracking, reporting, and documentation repositories (EDMS, CERNBox, JIRA).
• Plan workshops, technical reviews, and large-scale project events with logistics and actions.
• Coordinate communication plans and ensure consistent messaging across CERN departments and partners.

Skills

Project coordination

Stakeholder management

Risk management

Documentation

Team leadership

Communication

JIRA

EDMS

CERNBox

Education

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

JIRA

EDMS

CERNBox

Job description

You will join the Accelerator and Technology Sector (ATS) which comprises four departments – Beams, Engineering, Accelerator Systems, and Technology – responsible for the Sector’s main technical activities. The ATS Directorate Office (ATS-DO Unit) is home to the Project Office, the main project teams, and a number of sector-wide transversal activities.

The Project Office is seeking a Project Assistant with prior experience in large-scale scientific international projects, to join its dynamic team and provide key support to the HL-LHC Project, European projects, the ATS Specification Committee and other strategic projects and studies.

Your responsibilities

• Lead the coordination and delivery of complex European and strategic projects, ensuring effective planning, stakeholder engagement, milestone tracking, risk management, documentation, reporting, and the timely completion of project deliverables.
• Manage the end-to-end ATS Specification Committee technical review process, coordinating multidisciplinary stakeholders, overseeing workflows and schedules, ensuring compliance with procurement and audit requirements, and driving the timely execution of actions, deliverables, KPIs, and reporting.
• Drive project governance and performance monitoring by maintaining project plans, tracking progress against objectives, consolidating status reports, managing documentation and repositories (EDMS, CERNBox, JIRA), and proactively resolving issues that may impact schedules or deliverables.
• Plan and coordinate workshops, technical reviews, and large-scale project events, managing logistics, stakeholder engagement, documentation, follow-up actions, and decision tracking to support successful project outcomes.
• Coordinate communication and outreach activities for major projects and studies, developing communication plans, aligning stakeholders, supporting change management efforts, and ensuring clear, consistent messaging across CERN departments and external partners.

Be sure to meet the eligibility criteria

• You are a national of a CERN Member State or Associate Member State . Currently, we cannot consider applications from Pakistani, Lithuanian, Latvian, Cypriot, Croatian and Turkish nationals, as the ceiling defined under Article II.5 of the Associate Membership Agreement has been reached.
• By the application deadline, you have a master’s degree with 2 to 6 years of professional experience since graduation or a PhD with a maximum of 3 years of professional experience since graduation. You are not eligible with only a bachelor’s degree.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.
• Please pay attention to the additional criteria and requirements for this specific position and mentioned above.