Our programme structure

You will need to gain a total of 60 credits in order to graduate with the Certificate in Data Science for Health and Social Care or to proceed to Year 2.

Year 1 comprises a compulsory 20 credit course.

• Introduction to Data Science in Health and Social Care

This course will run in the first term of Year 1 (Sep to Dec). You must pass this course in order to continue Year 1.

You will choose four 10 credit courses from the list of electives. Availability of these courses will depend on student interest in order to ensure a viable class size. The courses will be available either in term 2 or term 3.

Elective choices for Year 1

• Introduction to qualitative research methods
• Introduction to statistics in health and social care 
• Data visualisation: Knowledge transfer
• Health and social care delivery and organisation
• Managing and leading data-driven innovation 
• Digital technologies in health and social care
• Data security and protection in health and social care 
• Managing and leading data-driven innovation (work based)
• Data ethics in health and social care
• Health data science
• Foundations of software development in health and social care 

• Data Types and Structures in Python and R

• Statistical Modelling for Epidemiology

• Intermediate Epidemiology

• Data Analysis with R 

More information on course options

Having successfully gained 60 credits from Year 1, you will study six 10 credit courses over the three terms in year 2 to arrive at a total of 120 credits for the Diploma in Data Science for Health and Social Care. As before, course availability will depend on student interest and courses will be offered in one of the three terms only.

Year 2 comprises a compulsory 20 credit course.

• Research design in data science for health and social care

Elective choices for Year 2

• Text Mining for Social Research (fusion online)
• Managing and leading data-driven innovation
• Data standards and core technologies in health and social care
• User-driven service design in health and social care
• Introduction to databases and information systems 
• Entrepreneurship and data-driven innovation 
• Systems thinking for data in health and social care 
• Big data analytics
• Implementation science: putting evidence-based interventions into practice
• Managing and leading data-driven innovation (work based) 
• Health data science
• Applied software development in health and social care
• Intermediate statistics for health and social care
• Intermediate R Programming for data science
• Introductory applied Machine Learning
• Software development

• The use and evolution of digital data analysis and collection tools

• Engaging with digital research 

• Systematic reviews

• Qualitative interviewing and data analysis for public health

More information on core and optional courses

Having successfully gained 120 credits and with a good idea of your dissertation project you will proceed to the final year of the MSc, the dissertation year.

Towards the end of year 2 you will be offered a list of projects and supervisors. Projects may include online student placements in the public sector or in industry.  You may already have a project or a supervisor in mind. You will discuss project options with your tutor and with the dissertation coordinator and should aim to have a good idea of your project by the end of year 2.

You will be given dates for interim supervision meetings and for the final hand-in.

More information on course options

PPD is aimed at working professionals who want to advance their knowledge through a postgraduate-level course(s), without the time or financial commitment of a full Masters, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate. 

You may take a maximum of 50 credits worth of courses over two years through our PPD scheme. These lead to a University of Edinburgh postgraduate award of academic credit. 

Alternatively, after one year of taking courses you can choose to transfer your credits and continue on to studying towards a higher award on a Masters, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate programme. 

Any time spent studying PPD will be deducted from the amount of time you will have left to complete a Masters, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate programme. 

Find out more about the PPD option