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While the term probably has its roots in the medical use that Nick Webb identifies, it has become widely used in the United States for, generally unpaid, workplace attachments that enable graduate students and others to get experience, and maybe even some training, while working alongside and supporting experienced professionals. (Emphasis intended) There are, for example, interns in the White House (remember Monica Lewinsky?) and on Capitol Hill (Ewan Blair), investment banks, major law firms, etc and even some pro bono activities such as the various death row campaigns. They are intended to be supernumerary posts not replacements for paid employees and may involve everything from photocopying and tea making to legal research and helping to prepare legal briefs and other documentation, working on political campaigns, undertaking political research, etc. Many of the staff of presidential campaign offices are interns. They usually involve a short burst of intense activity and then a return to a programme of study. They are often undertaken in association with the universities at which the interns are studying and may form a credited part of their degree programme. Inevitably the less money the employing organisation has, the more likely it is that the intern will, in fact, do real work but that’s not the object of the exercise. The balance of the benefit is supposed to be with the intern, even if the learning is by osmosis rather than by programme. They certainly help to build a CV. The United Nations, for example, has a huge intern programme across all its operations but it works within very clear guidelines. Interns have to be sponsored by their university or other organisation, public or private, but there is an assumption that, while they are expected to carry out a range of tasks, they will be trained and supported and encouraged to attend lectures and seminars run by and for the staff of the host agency. That said, there is some recent concern that interns are being used to do work that would otherwise be salaried – in other words, they’re being exploited. These positions are not advertised individually but through a general call by each of the agencies, indicating that they offer internships and outlining the conditions under which they are provided and inviting formal applications. They usually last for three months but may be extended to six. Typically, in the UK we’ve imported a well-established US idea but in a half baked form - the free labour but without the other assumptions. As Paul Duller has pointed out, such ‘internships’ are illegal. We should also try not to conflate the traditional volunteering or even the short periods of pre-course work experience to which Elizabeth Boardman refers with the more formal internships which gave rise to the discussion. The aim and intention of each is quite different. As professionals, we should certainly not be suggesting to employers that there’s a pool of free labour available to do work for which otherwise they would have to pay, whether it’s legal to do so or not. The amounts of money involved are very small. The post in the original ad which gave rise to this debate – 20 hours a month for 3 months – wouldn’t have cost much more than £2,000-£3,000 all told. Surely the work was important enough to justify this minimum level of investment? Peter Emmerson Poplar House 5 School Street Witton-le-Wear Co Durham DL14 0AS Tel: +44 (0)1388 488865 Mobile: +44 (0)7516744795 Contact the list owner for assistance at [log in to unmask] For information about joining, leaving and suspending mail (eg during a holiday) see the list website at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=archives-nra