Strengthening the
contribution of education to innovation requires action across all higher
education institutions. This article reports the findings of a study that
examined innovation tournament as a multidisciplinary pedagogical activity
system for the development of innovation competence in an institutional context
that combined vocational secondary (vocational college) and tertiary (university
of applied sciences) students. The focus was on the design of the activity
system and the solutions found in the design phase concerning the following system
components: subject, community, object, rules, tools and division of labour. The
research question was: What kind of multidisciplinary pedagogical activity system
facilitates the development of innovation competence? The
method used was a theory-based qualitative activity system analysis, and the
research material consisted of annotated teacher–producer planning meeting videos.
The study found tensions and solutions for the learning subject and community
formation, as well as for the tournament object formation concerning tasks, ways
of working, assessment methods and the challenges from companies. The study
also found solutions for tournament rules, division of labour and tools, such
as processes, methods of choosing the winners, prizes, assessment criteria and
the technical tools.  To support the
development of innovation competence, the
activity system was organised in seven weeks rounds with weekly tasks: the orientation (future orientation, innovation theory), idea,
concept, prototype and testing, implementation, entrepreneurship and assessment
rounds. The study concludes with a model of a pedagogical innovation tournament
activity system for teachers’ pedagogical use in higher and vocational education
contexts. Future research in this area should focus on assessment methods for innovation
competence.