Statistical Sciences

Overview

The Statistical Sciences programme at the University of Padua has an expected length of 3 years. About 8 students enter the programme every year. The School aims at selecting the best candidates applying from all over the country as well as from abroad. Admission is by competition which is open to people of all ages and citizenship who already have a Diploma di Laurea (vecchio ordinamento) or Laurea Specialistica/Magistrale (nuovo ordinamento), issued in Italy, or an academic qualification of equivalent level issued by a foreign university and recognized by the academic authorities, or by interuniversity agreement of cooperation and mobility.

More about this course

The first year is devoted to courses, both core courses on Functional Analysis, Probability Theory, Programming Methodologies for Data Analysis, Statistical Theory and Statistical Modelling as well as short, more specialised, courses on topics such as: Time Series, Survival Analysis, Nonparametric Statistics, Survey Methodology, etcetera. Lectures are given in English. Students can also follow some upper-division courses (Laurea Magistrale) at the Department of Statistical Sciences or other Departments at the University of Padova.  Attendance to all courses is compulsory.

At the end of the first year, PhD candidates propose to the Course Collegiate their own research programme to be carried over during the second and third year. They can either join local research groups at Padova or partner departments or start an independent research. The Course Collegiate assigns a supervisor to each PhD student. Original research results should be presented in the PhD thesis, to be discussed both in front of the Course Collegiate and (subject to positive evaluation by the Collegiate) in front of a Committee composed of Italian and foreign experts on the thesis topic. Intermediate results at the end of the second year are to be presented as a department seminar. During the second and third year up to 12 months can be spent at a University or other highly qualified institution abroad. In this case the grant is 50% more, for the whole period spent abroad. The thesis can be written either in Italian or in English.

Career opportunities

As a general objective, the Course aims at training specialists at an international level in the fields of data management and analysis. The programme leads to a wide range of career opportunities, both at the academic level and in other highly qualified research institutions. See the section Alumni for details on the current occupation of PhDs from The Department of Statistical Sciences starting from 1987. 

Students having completed one of the doctoral programmes in Statistics at Padua now have positions in a wide range of academic, public and private institutions, both in Italy and abroad.