Study

We offer a variety of courses and programmes in the area of Social Data Science and Computational Social Science.

Undergraduate

• Members of the SDS Hub have designed the Challenge Course “Understanding Society with Big Data,” available since the 2025-26 academic year. This is a pre-Honours (Year 1 or 2) course open to students from across the University, on any programme that permits taking outside courses. Many degree programme tables highlight challenge courses specifically.

• Social science students interested in social data science can consider degree programmes “with quantitative methods” offered by the Edinburgh Q-Step Centre.

Postgraduate (MSc)

• Digital Sociology with Social Data Science: the MSc in Digital Sociology programme has a specialized pathway for students pursuing methodologically specialized courses in computational sociology, computational text analysis, and social network analysis. Students taking these courses can receive the degree “MSc Digital Sociology with Social Data Science.”

Postgraduate (PhD)

• UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing – contact Björn Ross for guidance on applying for computational/social data science projects in the CDT.

• PhD in Sociology – contact Tod Van Gunten for guidance on applying for computational/social data science projects in Sociology.

• PhD in Politics – contact Clare Llewellyn-MacRae for guidance on applying for computational/social data science projects in Politics.