University Leaders in Russia: Biographical, Education, and Degree Dataset on Rectors, Vice-Rectors, and Presidents

This dataset provides structured information on senior university executives in Russia (rectors, vice-rectors, and university presidents). The unit of observation is an individual executive affiliated with a specific university. Variables include role and (where available) vice-rector functional specialization, gender and year of birth (when available), academic degrees (Candidate or Doctor of Sciences and field), and key higher education characteristics (graduation year, specialization, and institution). Data were collected manually in 2025 from publicly available biographical materials on the official websites of all state universities (excluding branches) located in 85 regions of the Russian Federation. Text fields reproduce wording as published in the original sources (e.g., job titles, specializations, education and degree descriptions) and were not editorially revised. The dataset also includes each university’s identifier from the Russian Monitoring of Higher Education Institutions’ Performance, enabling direct linkage to institutional performance panel data (e.g., Harvard Dataverse dataset doi:10.7910/DVN/0XWEDR).