Data Science, Computing Sciences
Make big sense of big data
Experts on analyzing data are needed for solving challenging data driven problems such as understanding of text documents, conversation and social media; creating intelligent search engines; finding data-driven insights into phenomena of society, economy and culture; creating data-driven solutions for medical and biological problems; and enabling self-driving cars and autonomous robots.
Tampere University offers three related specialisations that involve analysis, modeling, prediction, and computation with big data: the Data Science (M.Sc.) specialisation and the Statistical Data Analytics (M.Sc.) specialisation focus on computational and statistical algorithms for data mining and machine learning, with differing emphases, and the Signal Processing and Machine Learning (M.Sc. Tech) specialisation focuses on engineering accurate predictive machine learning models.
The Data Science (M.Sc.) specialisation features several similar topic areas as the Statistical Data Analytics specialisation, but the Data Science (M.Sc.) specialisation places more emphasis on algorithmic and computational aspects of data science and artificial intelligence.
Data Science (M.Sc.) teaches you to understand data mining and master necessary skills, such as data cleansing or other preprocessing, integration, modelling, classification and prediction, and interactive exploration of data and models. You will learn methods ranging from probabilistic approaches through efficient data mining algorithms to flexible deep learning with neural networks. You will also learn to present data analysis results to decision-makers with descriptive summaries and visualisations.
The Data Science (M.Sc.) specialisation is one of the seven specialisations in the Master’s Programme in Computing Sciences, a degree programme that started in August 2020.
Check out why you too should study Computing Sciences
Get to know Computing Sciences unit of the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences (ITC)
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Link to scholarship programme
After completing the specialisation of Data Science in the Master's Programme in Computing Sciences you will have the skills and knowledge to
- choose suitable data analysis methods for the analysis tasks at hand from a reasonably wide selection of computational and statistical methods, including methods that are necessary for integrating data from different data sources during data preprocessing and/or analysis
- understand the algorithmic and computational aspects of the methods
- apply these methods to analyse data and interpret results critically
- use efficient computational and statistical methods to manage and analyse big data, including computational algorithms such as efficient parallel computing, optimization approaches, and deep neural networks and a variety of statistical modeling approaches such as classification, regression, and Bayesian analysis
- visualise the data / analysis results
- apply the analysis methods in new situations
- understand how well the methods may perform in different situations.
The languge of the programme is English.
The analysis of data has a central role in the modern information society. Organisations in both the public and private sector are collecting vast data sets, and an increasing amount of public sector data is made open. However, data - assumed to be an important asset for organisations - is useless unless it is analysed. Analysis is required to find regularities, such as trends or groupings, and to relate the data to other data sets within an organisation or in scattered online repositories.
Analysis needs activities such as data cleansing and other preprocessing, data integration, modeling and prediction, interactive and iterative visualisation of data, and models for the refinement of hypotheses and models. The presentation of intermediate and final results to decision-makers requires mastery of visualisation and reporting methods. Successful analysts need skills in both computational and statistical topics.
This specialisation educates top-level experts in computational and statistical data analysis who possess knowledge and skills for the aforementioned tasks and understand the overall processes of data analysis.
The tuition fee of the programme is 12 000 euros per academic year for non-EU/EEA students with a scholarship system for fee-paying students. For more information, please see Tuition Fees and Scholarships.
Master’s degree comprises of 120 ECTS credits. Each ECTS credit is about 27 hours of student work. Depending on the specialisation, courses are worth 90 ECTS and the remaining 30 ECTS are awarded for successfully completing a Master's thesis. The duration of the programme is two years. Students usually spend three semesters completing courses and one semester preparing the Master's thesis. The studies start in late August, and the academic year ends in late May.
Master’s Programme in Computing Sciences consists of seven specialisations, leading either to Master of Science, or Master of Science in Technology degree:
- Data Science (MSc)
- Human-Technology Interaction (MSc)
- Human-Technology Interaction (MSc Tech)
- Signal Processing and Machine Learning (MSc Tech)
- Software, Web & Cloud (MSc)
- Software, Web & Cloud (MSc Tech)
- Statistical Data Analytics (MSc).
The curriculum of the Master’s Programme in Computing Sciences 2021-2022 is available online (please note that this is the public view, students have access to more information via an electronic tool).
Students admitted to a Master’s Programme may be required to complement their earlier degree with complementary studies. The complementary studies will be decided at the faculty case by case (maximum 60 ECTS credits). The list of possible complementary studies is given in the curriculum under the section Prerequisities
As a graduate you will have knowledge and skills for data analytics and understand the overall data analytics process. Such analysts can be employed in analysis firms, as in-house analysts in companies producing big data, and in companies and organisations that gather and analyse public and private data, including government agencies, journalism, insurance, law enforcement, and finance, as well as in public and private research.
In addition to studies in one’s own Master’s Programme, students may take full advantage of the teaching offered by the Tampere higher education community ranging from technical to vocational studies in various fields.
This master's degree provides the required background if you wish to pursue doctoral studies at Tampere University or elsewhere. There are no tuition fees in doctoral studies at Tampere University. For doctoral programmes available please see Tampere University doctoral programmes.
Carefully read through the general eligibility criteria and the programme-specific eligibility criteria and see whether you meet them. For additional questions on applying, application documents and application process, please contact our Admissions office. For questions regarding the content of the programme, please contact cs.programme.msc.tau(at)tuni.fi.
Click to see the admissions criteria
Näytä
Eligibility criteria in the Master's degree programmes consist of two parts: Tampere University's general eligibility criteria, and programme-specific eligibility criteria, which specify and/or add information to the general criteria. You must meet both to be considered eligible. Applicants who do not meet both the general eligibility and the programme-specific eligibility criteria will not be selected as students in Tampere University.
General eligibility
To be eligible to apply to a Master’s degree programme at Tampere University, you must have
- Bachelor’s degree - nationally recognized first cycle degree
- which corresponds to at least 180 ECTS (European credits) or to three years of full-time study
- from relevant field for the Master’s degree programme that you’re applying to
- from an accredited institution of higher education
- AND a good command of the English language for academic purposes. For more information, please see Language requirements.
A Bachelor’s degree completed in a university outside Finland must provide eligibility for university-level master’s degree studies in the country in which it was awarded.
Applicants in their final final year of the Bachelor’s degree are eligible to apply if the degree will be completed by 31 July 2020. In this case, they may be accepted conditionally. Please see special instructions for applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree.
Applicants with a Master’s degree may be admitted only for well-founded reasons and only if they are able to show that the new degree at Tampere University provides the applicant with significant new knowledge and skills.
Programme-specific eligibility criteria
- Computer Science, Statistics or Mathematics or in another applicable field.
The degree needs to include a sufficient amount of studies in computer science, and also a sufficient amount of studies in statistics and mathematics.
All applicants must submit evidence on a good command of English for academic purposes. There are two ways of indicating English language proficiency: language tests and previous studies.
Additional information on language requirements and how to submit the language test results.
The minimum English language test result requirements
| Test name | Minimum test result |
| TOEFL iBT | 92 overall, with no section below 20 |
| IELTS (academic) | 6.5 overall, with no section below 5.5 |
| PTE (academic) | 62 overall, with no section below 42 |
| C1 Advanced | C |
| C2 Proficiency | C1 |
| Finnish National Certificate of Language Proficiency (English) | Proficiency level 5 |
*The previous CAE and CPE have been renamed as C1 Advanced and C2 Proficiency
Previous studies
It is possible to be exempted from submitting a language test score if you have completed particular studies listed by Tampere University. Only these studies are accepted. If you apply without a valid language test result, carefully examine the exemptions.
A maximum of 145 students are admitted into the Computing Sciences programme.
The Computing Sciences programme includes the following tracks: Data Science (MSc), Human-Technology Interaction (MSc), Human-Technology Interaction (MSc tech), Machine Learning (MSc tech), Software, Web & Cloud (MSc), Software, Web & Cloud (MSc tech) and Statistical Data Analytics (MSc).
Students are selected to the programme from those applicants who submit a complete application (application and application documents by the deadline) and fulfil the official eligibility criteria.
The student selection is made by an admissions committee based on the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents. Please note that not all applicants fulfilling the requirements can be admitted.
Students admitted to a Master’s degree programme may be required to complement their earlier degree with complementary studies.
The number of eligible applicants annually exceeds the number of students that can be accepted. The student selection is made by an admissions committee on the basis of the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
You will need to upload copies of all required documents as enclosures on the application form. In addition to the general application enclosures, some programmes have listed additional programme-specific enclosures that are needed when applying to these programmes.
You will need to upload all required enclosures on your application form online at Studyinfo.fi. In addition to uploading, you must submit officially certified copies of your educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office by post. Applicants whose degrees have been awarded in certain countries need to pay special attention to the documentation and documents from these countries must be submitted in a particular way. These country-specific requirements must always be followed first and foremost, prior to the regular requirements.
Applicants must post the educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office so that they arrive by 31 January 2020.
You can find the list of the required general application enclosures and further instructions on the Application documents webpage.
There are no programme-specific enclosures when applying to this progamme
Click to see the admissions criteria
Näytä
Eligibility criteria in the Master's degree programmes consist of two parts: Tampere University's general eligibility criteria, and programme-specific eligibility criteria, which specify and/or add information to the general criteria. You must meet both to be considered eligible. Applicants who do not meet both the general eligibility and the programme-specific eligibility criteria will not be selected as students in Tampere University.
General eligibility
To be eligible to apply to a Master’s degree programme at Tampere University, you must have:
- Bachelor’s degree - nationally recognized first cycle degree*
- which corresponds to at least 180 ECTS (European credits) or to three years of full-time study
- from a relevant field for the Master’s degree programme that you’re applying to
- from an recognised institution of higher education
- The Bachelor’s degree completed in a university outside Finland must provide eligibility for university-level master’s degree studies in the country in which it was awarded.
- AND a good command of the English language for academic purposes. For more information, please see Language requirements.
*Please see detailed information on the General eligibility criteria web page.
Applicants in their final year of the Bachelor’s degree are eligible to apply if the degree will be completed by 31 July 2021. In this case, they would be accepted conditionally. Please see special instructions for applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree.
Admission to studies leading directly to a master's degree will be based on the applicant’s bachelor's degree conferred by a university or a university of applied sciences. Depending on programme-specific admission requirements, the programme may take into account skills previously acquired by applicants when considering applications.
A previously completed master’s degree will not make applicants ineligible for admission. However, applicants who are applying for admission to pursue a second master’s degree will only be admitted for particularly weighty reasons.
Programme-specific eligibility criteria
To be eligible to apply to the Master's Degree Programme in Computing Sciences - Data Science (MSc), you must have a successfully completed Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in
- Computer Science, Statistics or Mathematics or in another applicable field.
The degree needs to include a sufficient amount of studies in computer science, and also a sufficient amount of studies in statistics and mathematics.
The student selection is made on the basis of the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
145 students are admitted into the Computing Sciences programme.
The Computing Sciences programme includes the following tracks: 1) Data Science (MSc), 2) Human-Technology Interaction (MSc), 3) Human-Technology Interaction (MSc tech), 4) Machine Learning (MSc tech), 5) Software, Web & Cloud (MSc), 6) Software, Web & Cloud (MSc tech) and 7) Statistical Data Analytics (MSc).
Students are selected to the programme from those applicants who submit a complete application (application and sufficient application documents by the deadline) and fulfil the official eligibility criteria.
The student selection is made by an admissions committee based on the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents. Please note that not all applicants fulfilling the requirements can be admitted.
Students admitted to a Master’s degree programme may be required to complement their earlier degree with complementary studies. The complementary studies will be decided at the faculty case by case (maximum 60 ECTS credits).
The number of eligible applicants annually exceeds the number of students that can be accepted. The student selection is made by an admissions committee on the basis of the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
Student admission will be based on the faculty’s academic assessment of applicants’ prior degree and the merits presented in their application documents. Applicants will be ranked according to an academic assessment based on the applicant’s existing degree, proficiency in the English language and other supporting factors.
In the selection process, the following are evaluated as a composite:
- High enough academic performance in Bachelor degree studies
- General quality of all previous university studies
- Specific quality of all previous university studies: evidence of specialisation/documented interest in the programme’s field
- Evidently high academic motivation to study in this programme at Tampere University
- Proficiency in the English language
The academic assessment will be conducted for all applicants who meet the minimum requirements. In addition to the official transcript of records of the Bachelor's degree, the main supporting documents attached to the application are a CV and a letter of motivation.
You will need to upload copies of all required documents as enclosures on the application form. In addition to the general application enclosures, some programmes have listed additional programme-specific enclosures that are needed when applying to these programmes.
You will need to upload all required enclosures on your application form online at Studyinfo.fi. In addition to uploading, you must submit officially certified copies of your educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office by post. Applicants whose degrees have been awarded in certain countries need to pay special attention to the documentation and documents from these countries must be submitted in a particular way. These country-specific requirements must always be followed first and foremost, prior to the regular requirements.
Applicants must post the educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office so that they arrive by 27 January 2021 at 15.00 GMT+2. You can find the list of the required general application enclosures and further instructions on the Application documents webpage.
There are no programme-specific enclosures when applying to this programme.
Click to see the admissions criteria
Näytä
Eligibility criteria in the master's programmes consist of two parts: Tampere University's general eligibility criteria, and programme-specific eligibility criteria, which specify and/or add information to the general criteria. Applicant must meet both to be considered eligible. Applicants who do not meet both the general eligibility and the programme-specific eligibility criteria will not be selected as students in Tampere University.
General eligibility
To be eligible to apply to a master’s programme at Tampere University, you must have:
1. Bachelor’s degree - nationally recognized first cycle degree
- an applicable bachelor’s degree at a university or a university of applied sciences in Finland
- a bachelor's degree completed in a university outside Finland which provides eligibility for equivalent University master’s degree studies in the country in which it was awarded.
- with a minimum scope of 180 ECTS credits, three to four years of full-time study
- from a relevant field for the master’s degree programme that you’re applying to
- from a recognised institution of higher education
2. A good command of the English language for academic purposes. For more information, please see Language requirements.
Applicants in their final year of the bachelor’s degree, who are due to graduate in the spring of 2022, are eligible to apply if the degree will be completed by 31 July 2022, provided that you fulfil all other requirements and deliver officially certified copies of educational documents by 22 August 2022. In this case, they would be accepted conditionally. Their applications will be assessed based on the officially certified transcript of records which they submit at the time of applying. Please see special instructions for applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree.
Admission to studies leading directly to a master's degree will be based on the applicant’s bachelor's degree conferred by a university or a university of applied sciences. Depending on programme-specific admission requirements, the programme may take into account skills previously acquired by applicants when considering applications.
Please see detailed information on the General eligibility criteria web page.
Programme-specific eligibility criteria
To be eligible to apply to the specialisation of Data Science in the Master's programme in Computing Sciences, you must have a successfully completed Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in
- computer science, statistics or mathematics or in another applicable field.
The degree needs to include a sufficient amount of studies in computer science, and also a sufficient amount of studies in statistics and mathematics.
The student selection is made on the basis of the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
When applying to a master’s programme at Tampere University, you must submit evidence of your good command of the English language for academic purposes. You have two options of demonstrating your English language proficiency: language tests or previous studies.
In both cases you must submit a document as a proof of language skills. Please see detailed instructions and additional information on the language requirements web page.
Tests and the required minimum results
TOEFL iBT/ TOEFL iBT Home Edition/ TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition
92 overall with no section below 20
IELTS Academic/ IELTS Indicator
6.5 overall with no section below 5.5
PTE Academic
62 overall with no section in Communicative Skills below 42
C1 Advanced, previous as CAE
C
C2 Proficiency, previous as CPE
C1
National Certificate of Language, Proficiency (English)
Proficiency level 5 on all the subtests (reading, writing, listening and speaking).
Please see detailed instructions and additional information on the language tests accepted on the language requirements web page.
Previous studies
It is possible to be exempted from submitting a language test score if you have completed particular studies listed by Tampere University that demonstrate your good command of English for academic purposes. Only studies that fulfill the criteria will be accepted, so if you apply without a valid language test result, carefully examine the exemptions listed by Tampere University and how to submit documents.
145 students for the programme in Computing Sciences.
The Master's Programme in Computing Sciences includes the following specialisations: 1) Data Science (MSc), 2) Human-Technology Interaction (MSc), 3) Human-Technology Interaction (MSc Tech), 4) Signal Processing and Machine Learning (MSc Tech), 5) Software, Web & Cloud (MSc), 6) Software, Web & Cloud (MSc Tech) and 7) Statistical Data Analytics (MSc).
Students are selected to the programme from those applicants who submit a complete application (application and sufficient application documents by the deadline) and fulfil the official eligibility criteria.
The student selection is made by an admissions committee based on the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents. Please note that not all applicants fulfilling the requirements can be admitted.
Students admitted to a Master’s Programme may be required to complement their earlier degree with complementary studies. The complementary studies will be decided at the faculty case by case (maximum 60 ECTS credits).
The number of eligible applicants annually exceeds the number of students that can be accepted. The student selection is made by an admissions committee on the basis of the academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
Student admission will be based on the faculty’s academic assessment of applicants’ prior degree and the merits presented in their application documents. Applicants will be ranked according to an academic assessment based on the applicant’s existing degree, proficiency in the English language and other supporting factors.
In the selection process, the following are evaluated as a composite:
- High enough academic performance in Bachelor degree studies
- General quality of all previous university studies
- Specific quality of all previous university studies: evidence of specialisation/documented interest in the programme’s field
- Evidently high academic motivation to study in this programme at Tampere University
- Proficiency in the English language.
The academic assessment will be conducted for all applicants who meet the minimum requirements. In addition to the official transcript of records of the Bachelor's degree, the main supporting documents attached to the application are a CV and a letter of motivation.
Admissions step-by-step checklist
- Check the general eligibility and programme-specific eligibility criteria of the programme/s you wish to apply. You are allowed to apply to three programmes at the same time.
- Read through the instructions on how to apply and start preparing your application documents as early as possible!
- Take a language test if required, please see the language requirements.
- When the application period opens, fill in the online application at Studyinfo.fi during the application period and upload required enclosures to the application. The application period is 8 December 2021 at 8.00 (UTC+2) - 12 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2).
- Upload all required enclosures and send the educational documents by post to Tampere University Admissions Office within two weeks, by 26 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2). The documents must reach the University by the given deadline and they must be delivered according to the country-specific requirements, if applicable.
- You can apply for a scholarship on the application form, if applicable.
- Wait for the admission results to be announced at early April 2022 (Originally end of March. Information updated on 23.2.2022).
- If you are offered a study place, remember to accept it by the given deadline. Pay the tuition fee, if required.
- Start preparing for your arrival in Finland well in advance.
- Register as a student and join the Tampere University community when the studies start in August 2022!
Additional information on application process in detail.
Online application form
The online application form will be available only during the application period at Studyinfo.fi. The application period starts on 8 December 2021 at 8.00 (UTC+2) and ends on 12 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2).
You will need to upload copies of all required documents as enclosures on the application form. In addition to the general application enclosures, some programmes have listed additional programme-specific enclosures that are needed when applying to these specific programmes.
In addition to uploading the application documents as enclosures to your application form in Studyinfo.fi, you must submit the officially certified copies of your educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office by post according to the Tampere University instructions. Applicants whose degrees have been awarded in certain countries need to pay special attention to the documentation and documents from these countries must be submitted in a particular way. These country-specific requirements must always be followed first and foremost, prior to the regular requirements.
Applicants must post the educational documents to Tampere University Admissions Office so that they arrive by 26 January 2022 at 15.00 (UTC+2). Please see the list of the required general application enclosures and detailed instructions on the Application documents webpage.
There are no programme-specific enclosures when applying to this programme.
There is a small delay in the admissions process and the admission results will be published in early April 2022 (Originally end of March. Information updated on 23.2.2022). All applicants will be informed about the admissions results.
Please see additional information regarding the publication of student selection results and Tampere University rectification procedure.
