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Home | Graduate Program | Program Outline

Program Outline

Business Data Science offers a Research Master’s Program with three tracks: in Quantitative Finance, Management Science and Operations Analytics


The Research Master in Business Data Science is a two-year program consisting of 120 EC. It is tailored for recent Bachelor's degree graduates, or those currently still enrolled in an undergraduate degree program, who are looking to pursue a solid course of training leading to a doctoral degree. The learning objectives of the program are achieved through a curriculum designed around a Data Science foundation, a Business foundation and Research practice. 

Data Science Foundation - Acquiring skills. In year 1, the primary objective is to build a solid data science foundation and expose students to a variety of methodological approaches. These skills are applied to various business disciplines in the field courses.

Business Foundation - Building knowledge. In year 2, students focus on a given business sub-discipline, selecting from among: 1) quantitative finance, 2) management science, and 3) operations analytics. The courses assigned for each of these sub-disciplines have been carefully selected by a team of experts with the aim of ensuring the perfect learning trajectory that will lead to substantive contributions in the fields of each particular sub-discipline.

Aligning skills and knowledge

The curriculum starts with an overview of the business problems that data science can address, which also exposes students to fundamental components of multiple fields in business. This early exposure helps students to absorb and process materials presented later in courses on methodology, with respect to the various business perspectives. Students become further acquainted with research topics in business during seminars held throughout the first year and internships, as well as during the research hackathon. The hackathon makes students think about how to approach the problems that arise in the various disciplines and puts their knowledge to the test.

First year students will address problems in all of the different business fields; second year students will focus on addressing the problems linked to their field of specialization. The Research Master thesis represent students’ final moments of integrating business and data science, and will showcase their ability to identify relevant problems and address them using cutting-edge techniques to make a substantive contribution to the field.

Get an idea about the program by viewing the Annual Schedule of the Research Master Business Data Science.

Find the full course list here. The program requirements for 2024-2025 can be found here

Study guide