The dissertation is dedicated to the research and solution of an actual, but not sufficiently studied problem of applying branding in higher education with the purpose of expanded reproduction, development and effective use of the potential of a higher educational institution (hereinafter referred to as HEI) as a subject of the market of educational services in conditions of information society. The necessity of holding such research is due that HEIs face a number of current problems, which solution drive the need to use branding tools, the establishment of brand standards and the implementation of a joint branding strategy distinguishing individual competitive advantages. In order to increase their competitiveness, HEIs should find modern methods of gaining popularity among potential consumer-entrants. The abovementioned stipulated the purpose of the research - the deepening of theoretical provisions and the development of practical recommendations concerning the substantiation of the use of branding as an integrative system for the implementation of competitive advantages of higher education. The purpose of this goal determined the necessity of solving a number of scientific problems, which are reflected in received scientific and practical results of the dissertation work. In order to improve the competitiveness of HEIs, for the first time the conceptual framework of the model "4'B Branding" was elaborated and substantiated, which main principles are manifested in the synergistic relationship and interaction of such components as brand-capital - brand-management - brand-building - brand-promotion, which allows to create new competitive advantages in domestic and international markets of educational services in order to create a new educational quality. Usage of elaborated model will allow HEIs to proceed to mainly innovative and educational extended reproduction of the component "brand-capital" (as a set of resources for the formation of the brand); knowledges, skills, unique competencies of "brand-management" component (as a system of management measures of top management); intellectual development of the component "brand-building" (as a system of use of material and non-material factors of brand building); the priority of social needs of consumers of the "brand-promotion" component (as a system of measures for increasing the level of awareness and customer orientation of the brand), which synergistic combination, unlike existing approaches, allows the formation, development and use of the competitive advantages of HEI in order to gain a decent place in the market of educational services. In order to form branding in the period of integration of higher education in Ukraine into the modern world economy, the essence of integration cooperation between business and higher education was improved as an attractor of the development of branding of higher education: "university-innovations-business- social-ecosystem", which, unlike existing approaches, permitted to ascertain the integral role of the entrepreneurial component in ensuring socially responsible educational and innovative way of forming a competitive brand of HEIs. The scientific and methodological approach to determining the magnitude and degree of development of some components of the brand of higher education institutions was improved, which, unlike existing approaches, allows using the tools of multifactorial, cluster and taxonomic analysis not only to determine the size of the brand as a whole, but also the degree of manifestation of each of the four components and, accordingly, to carry out a cluster ranking of each of researched HEIs in terms of development level: high, medium or low, to propose appropriate managerial decisions.
