The project is aimed at solving an actual scientific problem of identification the nonlinear effects of the institutionalization of modern practices of professional training of engineers for the digital economy. Finding the solution of this problem will make it possible to form proposals to smooth out the most acute inter-institutional contradictions, "gaps" in the system of modern engineering education, and exit from the existing "institutional traps" within this system. Comparative analysis of empirical and theoretical studies of the implementation of new models of engineering education in a number of major European universities(Ural Federal University, Russia; University of Dunajvaros, Hungary; Berlin Technical University, Germany; Belarusian state University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, Bellorussia) will expand the understanding of the peculiarities of the processes of their institutionalization on the basis of comparison and generalization of the experience of partner universities. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the formulation of the scientific idea of the fundamental difference in the understanding of the social effect of the introduction of new practices of engineers studying as an institutional channel for the formation of the modern technical elite of society. The scientific novelty in the proposed solution of the stated problem consists in the use of the research strategy of comparative case-study methodologyand the methodology of "reasonable theory".