Reinforcement learning for business, economics and social sciences

How do machines learn to make the right decisions? How can individuals, companies, organisations and researchers benefit from automated decisions?

This free online course introduces the basics of reinforcement learning (RL). It is about how to make decisions when you receive little, delayed or indirect feedback. RL is becoming increasingly important in business and the social sciences - for example for adaptive experiments, multi-step decision-making and personalised recommendations.

Over four weeks, participants will learn about core concepts such as multi-armed bandits, Markov decision processes, dynamic programming and time-difference learning, supported by video content, real-world applications and interactive online sessions. The speaker will be Prof. Dr Davud Rostam-Afschar, Professor at the University of Mannheim and Scientific Director of the German Economic Panel. The event is open to UW/H scientists.

The registration deadline is 12 May 2025.

Further details and the registration link can be found on the BERD@NFDI website.

Questions will be answered by e-mail: berd-academy@stat.uni-muenchen.de