The COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered an avalanche-like transition of universities to a remote work format, not only identified new conditions for organizing pedagogical and administrative processes in universities, but also updated the topic of digital technologies in research projects and publications. The framework of the “digital university” model, for the implementation of which the state provides subsidies, consists of four blocks: management systems based on data; digital educational technologies; individual educational trajectories; competence of the digital economy. In general, the development of a framework for a digital university model is aimed at solving specific problems that are fully justified, and their solution seems to be extremely necessary, but in a sense they can represent only the first stage in the development of a digital university as a phenomenon of a new era. The introduction of technological innovation into the ritualized practices of universities is, in fact, a response to past challenges. To rethink the framework of the model, its enrichment and refinement, the theory of stakeholders (stakeholders) was used. The main stakeholders are: the state; University management; administrative staff; teaching staff; researchers and laboratory assistants; educational support staff; technical staff; students; parents and legal representatives of students; applicants; parents and legal representatives of applicants; foreign universities and their representatives in the university administration; foreign faculty; foreign students, graduate students and doctoral students; employers; investors; mass media (primarily regional); public organizations. The needs of stakeholders are considered, as well as possible digital solutions. The article substantiates that the traditional use of a digital device without the actual use of innovative digital technologies does not make higher education digital in the literal sense of the word.