Topicality of the problem of university performance planning is determined by the growing demand for highly qualified specialists (as a basic product of traditional universities) and limited resources of universities such as financial, personnel and other resources. At the same time, the innovative century sets new requirements for the universities: now they are not only higher education institutions, but also research and innovation implementation centres. The notion of the third generation defines the university as an innovation generation, transfer and implementation centre, while maintaining the traditional university functions. The addition of new features to universities requires fundamental changes in university management systems. Novelty of the research is connected with the implementation of the 3rd generation university concept within the university model. The object of research is university management and strategy development for university. The subject of research is university changes, after the implementation of the 3rd generation university concept. The paper aims to develop the 3rd generation university strategic planning model. Research results are tested and implemented at Riga Technical University. Development of the 3rd generation university model is topical not only for RTU, but for the entire world. At this moment, in the world a fully completed, unified concept of the 3rd generation university has not been developed yet; accordingly, the 3rd generation university model has not been previously developed. The main contribution of this paper is development of the general scheme of the 3rd generation university model with its components. Analysing practical implementation of the developed scheme and the developed model, it has been concluded that in some conditions, the development of universities depends on the ability to develop and manage innovative technologies. Universities in small countries have growth limits . It is probable that after the development of the 3rd generation university concept in the world, universities will divide again into high education institutions (or small, local, regional universities) and the 3rd generation universities (with research centres and innovation implementation centres). In these conditions RTU, being the leading university in Latvia, has set a task to get a rank in the top 100 universities in the world with regard to the level of development of innovative technologies for university needs.