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Abstract We study cross sections for the exclusive diffractive leptoproduction of $$\rho $$ ρ -mesons, $$\gamma ^*~p~\rightarrow ~\rho ~p$$ γ ∗ p → ρ p , within the framework of high-energy factorization. Cross sections for longitudinally and transversally polarized mesons are shown. We employ a wide variety of unintegrated gluon distributions available in the literature and compare to HERA data. The resulting cross sections strongly depend on the choice of unintegrated gluon distribution. We also present predictions for the proton target in the kinematics of the Brookhaven EIC.