Voluntary internship
In some cases, there will be no internship course available to a student, or he/she would rather do an internship without University involvement for other reasons. We call these internships ‘voluntary internships’. For these internships, because University has no role in them, and therefore no guidance or control is in place, University can not sign any legal documents concerning the internship, including an internship agreement.
When the internship is done in the Netherlands and the student has an EU/EER nationality, this is no problem. In these cases, you as an organization can draw up a bilateral internship agreement with the student, making clear this is a learning experience instead of disguised employment. We advise to agree upon aspects like learning goals, guidance, ways of working, leave days, financial compensation, insurance, etc.
The only exception to this is when the intern you want to hire is in the Netherlands on a permit or study purposes. In such cases, organizations always should be able to show a tripartite internship agreement, with co-signing of University, acknowledging that the internship is indeed done for study purposes. Therefore, you can only hire non-EU/EER interns who do their internship as part of their studies (meaning: for credits).