To apply for admission to this master's degree programme, you must have completed a qualifying bachelor鈥檚 degree or a similar Danish or international degree programme which is assessed to be relevant. Apply for admission via the application portal.
Below, you can read more about admission requirements and which documents to upload in the application portal.
Here you'll find the different academic requirements depending on which qualifying degree you hold.
In order to be admitted into the MSc in Social Data Science, applicants must meet the following requirements:
| Agricultural economics | Global business informatics |
| Anthropology | International business and politics |
| Business administration and digital management | Mathematics-economics |
| Business administration and project management | Organisational learning |
| Business administration and psychology | Political science |
| Business administration and sociology | Psychology |
| Digital design and interactive technologies | Public administration |
| Economics | Public health |
| Economics and business administration | Social science |
| 蜜桃传媒 science | Sociology |
| European business | Sociology and cultural analysis |
| European ethnology | Techno-anthropology |
For your guidance the following Danish degrees do not qualify for admission:
The list is not exhaustive.
All applicants must document qualifications on par with the Danish upper secondary school 鈥楨nglish level B'.
The English language requirement must be fulfilled and documented by the application deadline.
If you need to take a language test/exam, your scores must be available to the Faculty by the application deadline. To ensure that your test/exam scores are available to us on time, it is important that you sign up for a test/exam taking place well in advance before the deadline. You should expect 3-4 weeks from the test date until you can make the results available to the Faculty.
If you have already taken an IELTS or TOEFL, remember to check that your test is no older than two years on the date that you commence your studies.
Do I fulfil the English level B requirement?
Read more about it below.
Application deadline for Danish applicants and applicants from within the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
Open for applications from 16 January. You will receive a reply by 10 June.
Application deadline for applicants from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
Open for applications from 15 November. You will receive a reply by 1 May.
Before you apply to the master's degree programme in Social Data Science, please make sure to acquaint yourself with all the important information on the application procedure, application deadlines and details about how to apply. Select an option below to read more about your application.
As the Master鈥檚 degree programme only admits a limited number of students each year, meeting the admission requirements does not in itself guarantee admission to the programme. Allocation of student places is based on an overall assessment.
If more applicants than the maximum intake allows for fulfill the admission requirements, a selection will be made on the basis of a comprehensive evaluation, with emphasis on the following criteria:
Priority is given to candidates who have obtained their bachelor鈥檚 degree within the last five years.
The programme accepts a maximum of 75 students in September 2025.
Any improved grades are not considered. This is due to the fact that in Denmark it is not possible to improve grades in courses that has already been passed on the Bachelor's degree programme. Thus, if you have been awarded more than one grade in the same course, we will only consider the grade that you were awarded the first time that you passed the course when calculating your grade point average.
All applicants from non-Danish universities must, consequently, upload a complete transcript showing all examination attempts, the date of each examination attempt and the appurtenant exam result. If the applicant is unable to obtain a complete transcript from the home university, a confirmation that the applicant's transcript does not contain improved grades issued by the current home university is required instead.
Random checks of the applicant's basis for admission may also be made to the home university. In the case of admitted students, any fraudulent information in terms of grades may result in the student being deregistered from the degree programme in case of admission without entitlement.
However, any grade awarded on the basis of an appeal against the original grade will be considered. In this case, it must be clearly stated that this is an improved grade as a result of a complaint. Any such grade must be made available to the Faculty no later than the deadline for applications. Otherwise, the grade can only be considered in subsequent application rounds.
Random checks of the validity of international exam results will be carried out.
If you are in doubt about the rules or have questions about your entry qualifications read about who to contact here.
If you already have a master's degree from Denmark or another country, you can, in principle, only be admitted to a new degree programme if there are places available on the programme for which you are applying for admission (the master's degree admission rule).
In exceptional cases, we may grant dispensation from the master鈥檚 degree admission rule. Read more about the master's degree admission rule and the possibility of applying for dispensation here.
| Admission statistics Social Data Science 2024 | |
|---|---|
| Admitted | 65 |
| Admission distribution (legal right/other) | 0% / 100% |
| Applicants | 330 |
| Age average | 25 |
| Legal gender distribution (cpr. - m/f) | 37% / 63% |
| Nationality (dk/international) | 35% / 65% |
| Available spots | No |
The MSc in Social Data Science at the 蜜桃传媒 is a two-year programme taught in English. While it combines numerous methods and analytics from ethnography to machine learning, it adds up into a unified whole.
The programme is structured as a combination of compulsory courses for the first two semesters with plenty of scope for individual tailoring in the second year, since third-semester students can do internships, fieldwork or elective courses. You will spend the fourth semester individually or in a group working on your thesis, which must be handed in at the end of the semester.
The study programme is based on three central concepts 鈥� behaviour, networks and ideas 鈥� which the new field of social data science shares with the five existing social science disciplines taught at the 蜜桃传媒 (anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology).
Behaviour is concerned with what people do 鈥� their practices and decision-making processes. Networks are about the connections they make 鈥� social relations and their organisation and institutionalisation. Finally, ideas refer to what people know and think (including what they think they do) 鈥� their knowledge, preferences and values.
From the moment you start on the MSc in Social Data Science programme, you will work closely together with your fellow students in classes, field exercises and other curricular and extracurricular activities. It is therefore vital that you as students get to know, respect and trust each other.
To foster a social learning environment, the first semester of the programme is comprised of a base camp which introduces you to the interdisciplinary field of social data science and central methods and theories as well as key analytical and ethical questions arising from its practical application on concrete cases.
| Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
|---|---|
Social Data Science Base Camp (15 ECTS) | Advanced Social Data Science I (7.5 ECTS) |
Elementary Social Data Science (7.5 ECTS) | Advanced Social Data Science II (7.5 ECTS) |
| Social Data Analysis (7.5 ECTS) | Data Governance: Law, Ethics, and Politics (7.5 ECTS) |
Digital Methods (7.5 ECTS) |
| Semester 3 | Semester 4 |
|---|---|
Elective courses and mobility window (30 ECTS) | Master鈥檚 Thesis (30 ECTS) |
Ulf Aslak talks about his research in mapping of social groups and networks based on data from smartphones (the social fabric project).
Laura Alessandretti discusses human mobility.
Kristoffer Albris talks about DPOs and data governance in Denmark.
Anders Blok talks about his research in urban green communities in Danish cities.
Morten Axel Pedersen talks about social data science in relation to party sociality: What is a social atmosphere?
鈥淭here is a great need for integrated disciplines 鈥� people who can ask the right questions based on an academic analysis, and search for answers in the huge and complex data sets we have available today. In this respect, the MSc in Social Data Science programme is very interesting because it combines a number of core academic disciplines within the social sciences, thus giving them partly an interdisciplinary profile and partly an 鈥榚xtra gear鈥� for data analysis. I have no doubt that the graduates will be in high demand in both the private and the public sectors.鈥�
Casper Klynge, Tech Ambassador of Denmark
The study programme opens up possibilities for several types of employment, partly depending on how you decide to specialise during the second year.
Many graduates will go on to jobs in the private sector. Others will find employment in public and non-profit institutions and organisations in Denmark and abroad as well as in international organisations.
There is a considerable need for interdisciplinary data science skills in industry, service and technology businesses, and for consultants in local and global markets.
As a graduate from this programme, you can help realise this potential. Finally, as a graduate you can pursue a research career in social data science and related disciplines.
As a graduate, you will be able to
Overall, by combining social science and data science knowledge, skills and competences, you will be able to work individually and in teams with social data science issues at the highest international level. You will be able to provide solutions grounded in state-of-the-art social data science research, analyse problems and cases involving novel digital data forms and methods, and communicate your knowledge and your results to a wide range of audiences.
The structure of the programme with compulsory courses, group work during the first year, elective courses, internship or fieldwork ensures a lively study environment and close interaction with your fellow students.
For general information about student life and studying at the University, see
Living in Copenhagen
Check out what MSc student Gus thinks about living in Copenhagen.
Does my degree qualify me for admissions?
With 60 study places for the MSc in Social Data Science programme, we may receive more applications than we can honour. For your own sake, we therefore ask you to make sure that your degree qualifies you for admission before applying for admission.
If you look at the , you will find a diagram of the courses we are currently offering. If you click each course, you will find more information about the course, the names of the course organiser and the teachers on the course.
The courses currently listed at are the courses currently offered, and they are therefore subject to change.
As the MSc in Social Data Science is an interdisciplinary master鈥檚 degree programme which consists of interdisciplinary courses based on the collaboration of teachers coming from various social scientific areas and specialisations, the list of teachers involved in the programme is subject to change.
For the most updated list, you can take a look at the course descriptions under programme structure (See above). You can read about the specific course by searching for the title in www.kurser.ku.dk.
The MSc in Social Data Science is unique in that it is a truly interdisciplinary programme involving five departments at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the 蜜桃传媒 as well as researchers from the Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS). The courses have all been developed in close collaboration between at least two teachers from different departments as well as in collaboration with data scientists from SODAS, which ensures a cross-disciplinary take on all subjects forming part of the programme.
Furthermore, the programme also emphasises cross-disciplinary collaboration between the students. From the onset of the first semester, students will work in small study groups, where they will get the chance to work closely with students from other academic backgrounds than their own. This way, the students are constantly encouraged to share their experiences, views and knowledge.
Read about .
If you click and choose your citizenship, you will find a complete checklist on what to upload. In the , you will find a lot of helpful information regarding the application procedure.
If you click and choose your citizenship, you will find a complete checklist on what to upload 鈥� and a guide on how to do it.
Generally, it can be difficult for students to find a place to stay in Copenhagen. We recommend that our students start looking for a place as soon as they are admitted to the MSc in Social Data Science programme, as it may take a while to find housing.
The Faculty of Social Sciences is not able to provide housing or accommodation to its MSc degree students.
There are many Internet pages where housing or accommodation is offered and requested. We recommend that you look at the various online housing portals. You can read more about housing at the 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 .
At the website , you will find a lot of different information about living in Denmark, including information on permits, visas, health, accommodation, work etc.
At the website , you can read more about studying at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the 蜜桃传媒.
The rules for Danish residence documents 鈥� including work permits 鈥� depend on your citizenship.
If you are offered admission to the MSc degree programme in Social Data Science, the Faculty will send you elaborate information about how and when to apply for .
CPR stands for Det Centrale Personregister, which translates to the Civil Registration System.
A CPR number is a personal identification number which, among other things, facilitates accurate linkage between all Danish national registers.
Your CPR number consists of ten digits. The first six digits are your date of birth, and the last four are your unique identification number. The last digit of your CPR number indicates your sex. If it is an odd digit you are male, and if it is an even digit you are female.
Residents of Denmark are legally required to have a CPR number. You will also notice that your CPR number grants your access to a number of services in Denmark. You will need it in order to open a bank account, get a Danish phone number, borrow books at the library, take out insurance, etc.
If you are offered admission to the MSc degree in Social Data Science, the Faculty will send elaborate information on how to obtain your CPR number.
The Faculty of Social Sciences (SAMF) is part of City Campus and is located at the old Municipal Hospital (called Centre for Health and Society, CSS) in central Copenhagen.
Our student guidance are ready to assist you with answers to your questions about:
Do you have questions about digital application? Check our user guide to the application portal.
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