Introduction. Despite the urgency of the problem of staging the development of the system of additional professional education of scientific and pedagogical personnel of Russian universities, this issue has not been sufficiently developed in scientific and pedagogical research. The prerequisites and factors of the formation of the system of additional professional education of the teaching staff in domestic universities have not been fully studied; there is no clear idea of the criteria for the allocation of stages and the essential characteristics of each of the stages of the development of the system of additional professional education of teachers. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the stages of development of additional professional education of scientific and pedagogical personnel of Russian universities from the 20s of the twentieth century to the present on the basis of historical and retrospective analysis. Methodology and methods. The methodological basis of the study was the principles of historicism, systematicity development, ideas about the universal connection and interdependence of political, economic, social and educational processes and phenomena. The research methods are: analysis of research, historical-retrospective and historical–genetic analysis of the problem under study. Results. The paper shows the relationship between the development of the system of additional professional education of scientific and pedagogical personnel of Russian universities with socio-political and economic transformations in the country. The prerequisites for the emergence of a system of additional professional education in the USSR for the teaching staff of universities from the 1920-s to 1992 are presented. The essential characteristics of the formation stage of the system under study from 2002 to 2012, as well as the stage of its further development from 2012 to the present, are emphasized and disclosed.