Assessment of the Reputation of Russian Universities Providing Engineering Education Programs

reputational capital of higher education institutions becomes extremely important given the growing competition in the market of educational services, which influences the attraction of applicants, highly qualified teachers, and scientists. Building reputation capital has recently been significantly influenced by the digital environment, which is now starting to play a key role. Assessing a university's reputation is a multifaceted issue that includes analyzing information resources, determining its main criteria and indicators, and developing a methodology.The article considers the problems of measuring the reputation of Russian universities offering engineering training programs based on databases compiled from various sources. The study aims to identify reputational indicators and develop an approach to assessing the reputation of higher education institutions in Russia.The author analyzed data from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and Yandex search queries.The top Russian universities providing training of engineering personnel were identified through a comparative analysis of the evaluated parameters. When processing statistical data on the number of search queries, data quality was assessed with regard to aberrations and logical coincidences with other established word forms.The application of normalized data processing methods made it possible to compare the results of reputation assessments of higher education institutions from different regions of the country. Universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg lead in the majority of indicators, emphasizing their status as leading centers for education. At the same time, certain regional universities have high rankings in international and digital reputation, which indicates recognition of their role in training engineering specialists.The differences in the reputation assessment of Russian universities were found to arise from the specifics of the methodologies used in data collection and processing. The scientific novelty of the study lies in determining the composition of indicators characterizing the reputation of Russian universities, a detailed analysis of existing methodologies for its assessment, and the proposal of new approaches that expand the theoretical and methodological bases of the analysis. The findings can be used both in theoretical terms – to improve approaches to assessing university performance – and to optimize the management of higher education institutions