System of advanced training in the context of the “third role” of higher education in the USSR

The article examines the process of institutionalization of the advanced training system in the USSR based on the analysis of regulatory legal acts. The conceptual basis of the study is the "third role" of higher education. The third role is understood as the activity of universities focused on the needs of public institutions, going beyond teaching and science. The aim of the study is to characterize the processes of institutionalization of the advanced training system in Soviet Russia and the USSR and some results of activities in this direction. The methods are put forward and the sources of the study are determined: the synchronous and diachronic historical-comparative method, which is applied to the regulatory legal acts of the USSR. The stages of institutionalization of the advanced training system are distinguished. The first stage (1918-1958) is characterized by the emergence of the first institutes in the field of advanced training, the designation of key social groups (ordinary specialists, industry managers, teachers, doctors, etc.). However, advanced training, having covered different social groups, did not become a coherent unified system, and the compensatory and adaptive functions prevailed in the training itself. It is emphasized that advanced training as an independent area of education is institutionalized in the personnel training system in the 1960s. The formation of the advanced training system itself is completed, covering the main institutions, types of activities, goals and results of training and resources for implementation. It is noted that during the years of perestroika, an attempt was made to reorganize the advanced training system, which combined (to a certain extent contradictory) principles of continuous education and the utilitarian needs of the state to accelerate the economy, but this attempt failed due to the imminent collapse of the USSR. In con-clusion, the work concludes that further scientific research is needed in this area to more accurately determine the place of higher education in the advanced training system and its role in society.