Social Data Science

Entry requirements

We will consider applicants with a 2:2 Honours degree or above in a related subject, eg. social sciences*, psychology and economics, with demonstrable evidence of data analysis training/content.

Please note, if we receive an application which we deem more suitable for one of our other data science programmes we may make an offer for that alternative programme.

*Accepted social science subjects include:

• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Area and Development Studies
• Criminology
• Demography
• Development Studies
• Economics
• Economic and Social History
• Education
• Environmental Planning
• Human Geography
• International Relations
• Law
• Linguistics
• Management and Business Studies
• Media and Communication Studies
• Philosophy
• Politics and International Studies
• Psychology
• Science and Technology Studies
• Social Policy
• Social Statistics, Methods, and Computing
• Social Work
• Socio Legal Studies
• Sociology

Months of entry

September

Course content

• Explore ways to apply data analysis techniques to a range of substantive policy related questions and develop skills in evidence-based decision making
• Choose to specialise within a policy subfield such as social and family policy, economic and public policy, environment, criminal justice and security
• Delivered by the University's Centre for Computational Social Science (C2S2) providing you with the essential mathematical and programming skills to acquire and analyse data
• Put your market-leading social data science skills into practice with optional work placements or industry-based research consultancy projects
• You’ll gain an understanding of complex political and cultural issues, often in continually changing environments which will be relevant to both business and public sector careers or PhD study

Compulsory modules will explore the politics of the policy making process, evidence-based decision making, the use of data analysis at each of the policy and decision-making stages and the social complexities of policy making. You will discover how to turn data into graphical representations for describing and exploring data, analysing hypotheses and relationships and presenting evidence. We will provide you with the essential mathematical and programming skills needed to acquire and analyse data.

You will gain the technical understanding of a range of social data science techniques and the practical software and programming skills to implement these methods to address your research questions, allowing you to pursue other professional research activities.

You can further enhance your employability skills by undertaking either a work placement or industry-based research consultancy project. Previous students are now working for organisations such as the ONS Data Science camp, YouGov, the FCA and Defra.

Information for international students

Fees and funding

We invest heavily in scholarships for talented prospective Masters students. This is in addition to the UK Government’s Postgraduate Loan Scheme. For information on how you can fund your postgraduate degree at the University of Exeter, please visit the postgraduate study pages on our website.