Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech

Official University Master’s Degree in Statistics and Operations Research

Basic competencies

• Graduates of this degree will have acquired the knowledge that serves as a basis or opportunity for developing and applying original ideas, often in a research context.
• They will know how to apply the knowledge acquired and their problem-solving abilities in new or unfamiliar settings within wider (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to their field of study.
• They will be able to integrate their knowledge and deal with the complexity of making judgements on the basis of information that, although incomplete or limited, includes reflection on the social and ethical responsibilities related to the application of their knowledge and judgements.
• They will be able to clearly and unambiguously communicate their conclusions—and the knowledge and reasons that support them—to specialised and non-specialised audiences.
• They will have acquired learning skills that will enable them to continue studying in a largely self-directed or autonomous manner.

Generic competencies

• A capacity for carrying out activities that involve applying theoretical and methodological knowledge and statistical and operations research techniques using teamwork and other skills expected of graduates.
• A capacity for identifying the most appropriate statistical and operations research methods for analysing the information that is available at any given moment, in order to respond to problems and dilemmas that arise and to inform decision making.
• An awareness of the need to observe professional ethics and rules on data and statistical secrecy protection.

Specific competencies

• A capacity for designing and managing the gathering, coding, handling, storage and processing of information.
• A capacity for mastering the terminology belonging to a field in which statistical and operations research models and methods are applied to solve real problems.
• A capacity for formulating, analysing and validating models that are applicable to practical problems. A capacity for selecting the most appropriate statistical and operations research method or technique for applying models to concrete situations or problems.
• A capacity for using various inference procedures to answer questions, identifying the properties of different estimation methods and their advantages and disadvantages and adapting these methods to a concrete situation in a specific context.
• A capacity for formulating and solving real decision-making problems in various areas of application and selecting the most appropriate method and optimisation algorithm in each case.
• A capacity for choosing the most suitable software to carry out the calculations necessary to solve a problem.
• A capacity for understanding advanced statistics and operations research articles. Familiarity with research procedures for the production and transmission of new knowledge.
• A capacity for discussing the validity, scope and relevance of solutions and presenting and defending their conclusions.
• A capacity for implementing statistics and operations research algorithms.

Graduates of this master's degree will be experts who may be employed in healthcare, services, industry and business. They will apply the theory and methods of statistics and operations research in fields such as biostatistics, data engineering, marketing and finance, industrial statistics, optimisation in engineering and industry, and applications in transport engineering.