Today one can confidently state that practically every national university is involved in social interaction based on network principle. Bearing in mind the requirements the society and state set out to be met by universities, it becomes obvious that network activity of universities will be increasing. However, does this activity produce encouraging results? In other words, are Russian universities considered to be equal partners by academic networks? The answer is not always satisfactory. It means that we should recognize the necessity of doing research into network activity of national universities in partner social networks and optimize it. The article expresses the author’s view on the key question, connected with social-philosophical conceptualization of network activity of university as a social institute, “professional school” and a free community of intellectuals, namely, what methodological research principle is relevant to the objective nature of the phenomenon under study? The present work is aimed at finding a method providing an opportunity to get maximally reliable information about different activity forms of a university as a network partner, and also to analyze them effectively.