Digital Administration

Overview

*This programme profile is financed by Dora Plus Action 4: Marketing of study and employment opportunities in Estonia (European Regional Development Fund).

The Digital Administration master's programme (MDA) is based on Estonia's experience building Europe's number one digital public services governance system and its related technology business ecosystem.

The programme offers the possibility to complete a full executive degree in a 90% online format. Estonia, known as e-Estonia, is one of the world's most advanced digital societies. It has the most startups and the most unicorns per capita in Europe. As of 2022, Estonia has been the birthplace of 10 unicorns.

The MDA aims to train top public servants, professionals and IT specialists in leading a comprehensive digitalisation of the public sector. This involves:

• acquiring knowledge on the foundations of digital governance, guiding principles behind it and necessary technological conditions;
• being able to recognise specific practical use cases that a highly digitalised public sector provides effective and efficient governance and increases the quality of life through developing various digital services that cross domain boundaries, capture unique data and use it in novel ways.

The MDA curriculum is unique in that it combines four elements: (1) global reach and executive focus; (2) practical orientation; (3) multidisciplinarity with its "future skills" toolbox aimed at digital leaders; (4) entrepreneurial focus; and (5) online format of study.

• The programme's focus and scope are global, and it is one of only a few specifically designed for the target group of senior public servants, professionals, and IT specialists. MDA students will benefit from networking opportunities with top experts in the field of e-governance throughout the program and after it is completed.
• Compared to other programmes, the curriculum takes a more practical and hands-on approach, as it applies the principles, as well as specific examples and applications, of Estonia's e-governance ecosystem, which has already been launched and is based on real-time solutions for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
• The programme not only capitalises on the strength of multidisciplinarity by bridging IT and non-IT related disciplines in its curriculum, but it also brings together two cohorts of students who are typically not included in the same study programmes when it comes to the subject of e-governance and digitalisation: experts with extensive governance and public administration experience and civil servants with extensive governance and public administration experience.
• No other curriculum is so strongly related to entrepreneurship, as the role of founding the Estonian digital state and the preconditions for its successful development have been closely linked to the private sector. Lecturers are leaders and specialists of Estonian unicorns who participate in the curriculum and actively facilitate and incentivise cross-sector interaction.

• The programme is one of the few that allows students to complete a full executive degree online. Students will have access to high-quality video lectures, practice labs, guided projects, and assignments, as well as prompt technical support and personalised guidance to ensure a positive learning experience.

Career opportunities

Upon graduating from the programme, students will have a comprehensive digitalisation toolbox and a network of expert colleagues to pursue a career in the field.

Accreditation

Every seven years, all Estonian higher education institutions must undergo external evaluation – institutional accreditation. The latest assessment took place in 2022. The assessment council of the Estonian Quality Agency for Education decided to accredit the University of Tartu for the next seven years (2023-2029).