(DE) University of Bamberg

There is a continuously growing demand for survey statisticians deriving from official statistics, operators of major surveys and empirically engaged research institutions as well. In this context the well-grounded knowledge of statistical methods is crucial. The Master's degree programme Survey Statistics meets these increasing demands.

The curriculum provides the ability to analyse problems in social and economic sciences, psychology and similar domains applying statistical methods. Sophisticated and innovative problem solutions concerning the planning, conduction and evaluation of surveys are acquired, too.  

Handling surveys and official data is covered in several compulsory and elective modules, ranging from computer based analysis, treatment of missing values, questionnaire design and survey sampling to calibration and weighting methods, and general official statistics. Additional lectures and tutorials provide also insights into other aspects of quantitative research, e.g., multivariate statistics, Bayesian inference or time series analysis.

Further possibilities of specialisation prepare students for professional tasks and enable them to pursue own research activities, and professional experience can be acquired by a compulsory internship or research project.                            

Note that some of the lectures and tutorials are offered in cooperation with the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Trier and their faculties. Up to now this cooperation is unique not only in Germany, but also in Europe, and allows students to choose from an exceedingly wide range of courses.

General Information

The course of studies addresses students having earned a university degree (or equivalent) in social sciences, economics, mathematics, psychology or other disciplines relevant for statistics; with a final grade 2.5 (good) or better.

Moreover, knowledge of modules with statistical and / or quantitative methodical orientation of at least 30 ECTS credits has to be proven. This knowledge could have been acquired in courses of descriptive, inductive, multivariate as well as computer-assisted statistics, mathematical propaedeutics and econometrics or subject-specific quantitative research methods.

The University of Trier and the Freie Universität Berlin exchange courses in survey statistics to broaden the range of highly-specialized training.

Organisations for internships are amongst others: The Bavarian State Office for Statistics, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB).

Moreover, the University of Bamberg, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency and the Bavarian State Office of Statistics founded the Statistics Network Bavaria in February 2013. This cooperation is very successful. Since the beginning further universities as well as data producing institutes joined the network as members. It is an open cooperation to improve the exchange of knowledge and to promote joint projects.