NASK orders an analysis of the discourse on disinformation

What exactly is being ordered

The Research and Academic Computer Network (NASK) — National Research Institute has announced a procedure for a research service: monitoring and quantitative analysis of media content (media discourse analysis) regarding disinformation in the first and second quarters of 2026.

Full announcement including documentation: Monitoring and quantitative analysis of media content.

Figures from the announcement

• Budget: 100,000 PLN — this is the amount the contracting authority has allocated to finance the order.
• Submission deadline: August 21, 2026, with publication on August 12. That is nine days, in the middle of the holiday season.
• Completion deadline: up to two months from the date of contract conclusion.
• Evaluation criteria: gross price — 100% weighting.
• Bid bond: not required.

Who can participate

The documentation indicates that the contractor must demonstrate at least one research service involving the collection and processing of data from social media platforms within the last three years, and must also have a coordinator with the required education and experience. This is a relatively mild condition — one reference without a monetary threshold.

Security requirements constitute a separate group. The documentation includes a prohibition on entrusting the execution to entities from third countries that are not parties to relevant international agreements, as well as compliance with the Act on the National Cybersecurity System, including the exclusion of ICT products and services indicated in recommendations as having a negative impact on national security. For an order concerning disinformation, this is understandable.

What stands out

We are not making any claims of illegality — the following are observations regarding the structure of the procedure, and the assessment is left to the reader.

Price as the sole criterion for a research service. In media discourse analysis, the quality of the methodology, sample selection, and content coding method determine the value of the result far more than in an order for goods. A 100% price weighting means that among the bids meeting the minimum requirements, the cheapest one will win — without any comparison of the research approach.

Nine days in August. Preparing a bid for research requires designing a methodology and calculating team labor. The deadline, counted in working days, is clearly tight, and August further limits staff availability. As our data shows, a short deadline during the holiday season statistically reduces the number of bids.

Amount versus scope. 100,000 PLN for monitoring and quantitative analysis of two quarters of media discourse is a budget that limits the sample size and the depth of the analysis. For comparison, we calculated the median estimated value of Polish orders from the CPV 7931 group — opinion research and media monitoring — announced over the last year: it is 283,000 PLN based on a sample of 41 procedures. This order is therefore nearly three times cheaper than a typical one in its thematic category.

CPV code. The procedure was classified as 72313000 — data processing services. Research firms and analytical agencies usually monitor codes from the 79311 group (opinion research, media monitoring). In practice, this means that some potential contractors may simply not have seen this announcement, as they filter the market by their specific codes.

Where this data comes from

All the above figures come from the announcement in the Public Procurement Bulletin and from the procedure documentation, which our system downloaded and analyzed automatically. Participation conditions, criteria, and disqualifiers were extracted from the attachments, not from the announcement itself — which is why they are visible on our card rather than in the short description in the bulletin.

If you conduct media research or social data analytics, check the card for this procedure and browse similar orders.