The paper addresses the issues of changing the structure and content of the system of higher education in response to requests coming from the state and society. As it is argued, one of the most effective management tools for universities is networking. In practice this means that educational institutions should cooperate in order to find solutions to common tasks and goals and draw on various resources (i.e. material, informational and technological, scientific etc.) making them available to all participants. The paper highlights the contradiction between the future specialists’ need for innovational technologies and the impossibility to fulfill it in the rapidly changing settings of the modern society.