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The working hypothesis of the paper is that modern universities are peculiar for low sustainability to the changes of external environment due to low effectiveness of applied approaches to the diversification of their activities. The purpose of this paper is to verify the offered hypothesis by the example of modern Russia and develop an innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities on the basis of remote education, which has to expand the possibilities of modern universities in the sphere of diversification of their activities.

This research is based on the hypothetical and deductive principles with application of the method of trend analysis, which allows studying dynamics of the number of universities in modern Russia; method of classification, which allows distinguishing the main approaches to the diversification of modern university’s activities; method of comparative analysis, which allows comparing these approaches and determining their advantages and drawbacks; method of statistical analysis, which allows evaluating the effectiveness of these approaches; method of analysis of causal connections, which allows determining the logic of this innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities and determining its advantages as compared to existing approaches; method of modeling the state and development of socio-economic systems. The information and evidential basis of the research are statistical materials of the Federal State Statistics Service and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. The research covers the time interval of 2005/2006–2016/2017.

It is substantiated that remote education opens additional possibilities in the sphere of diversification of modern university’s activities. The developed and presented innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities on the basis of remote education is peculiar for higher effectiveness – as compared to the existing approaches – due to such advantages of remote education as minimum expenditures of labor and financial resources, potential large volume of market and obtaining advantages from “scale effect.”

The unique peculiarity and originality of the offered approach consist in the fact that remote education, which is a direction of diversification of university’s activities, is not an alternative but addition to the main educational services that are provided in the traditional form. Due to this, university enters a new market segment and strengthens its positions in the current market segment, which doubles its effect by increasing the sustainability of market positions of university.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine the main stages in the formation of information economy.

The authors use the method of noosphere research, a bifurcation approach to studying dynamic systems, which is related to systemic approach, the method of structural and functional analysis, the method of dialectical materialism, and the methodology of the institutional economic theory, abstraction, and formalization.

As a result of complex application of totality of the aforementioned methods and approaches to study the formation of information economy, the authors determine the essence and the main stages of information economy: formation of technosphere (technological foundation), formation of sociosphere (social core), and formation of economic sphere (economic pinnacle). At each of these stages, economic system faces serious socioeconomic changes that first face opposition from society and business, but then – with accumulation of practical experience – are accepted, opening the possibility for transition to the next stage of this process.

The authors conclude that while the influence of the global financial crisis in the early twenty-first century is common for all modern economic systems, it stimulated them to begin the formation of information economy. Furthermore, socioeconomic changes that followed this phenomenon are diverse and are largely predetermined by the context such as readiness of economic systems for continuation of their evolution, their reaction to crisis, susceptibility to changes, and other national peculiarities. That’s why the speed of passing the various stages in different economic systems varies.