Breeding programmes are key for managing and improving populations in agriculture, wild or captivity. This course details how to use the latest research to design a new, or upgrade an existing, breeding programme using (big-)data and data science. It achieves this by first, introducing the basic principles of in-silico modelling of breeding programmes and basic usage of R (highly transferable skills), particularly the package AlphaSimR (available at CRAN). Secondly, the accompanying online material showcases real life case studies of using AlphaSimR to effectively model breeding programmes for livestock, crop, insect and managed wild or captive populations. The course is self-sufficient, but participants can sign up to be part of particular cohorts, starting every 4 months.