The paper presents a concept for ranking Russian higher education institutions developed in the framework of the project «Developing and Approbating a Template Methodology for National Ranking of Higher Education Institutions» which is being implemented by National Training Foundation collaboratively with International Organisations Research Institute of the National Research University Higher School of Economics on request of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. The article also provides a detailed description of the ranking methodology elements that are relevant for the Russian education system. By publishing this paper the authors hope to draw attention of Russian experts on higher education quality assessment and academic community to the proposed ranking methodology.