Purpose: 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. Design/methodology/approach: 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. Findings: 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." Originality/value: 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.