The project aims to develop a knowledge base for an AI chat system that analyzes consumer behavior related to health and eco-friendly motivations, requiring research on product classification, motivational mechanisms, and the creation of personalized user interactions.
Request for Proposal No. 3/2026 (research services)
FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT IS IN THE DOCUMENT "REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL 3_2026"
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT
Subject and objective of the project
The aim of the project is to carry out research and development works aimed at developing and implementing into the PanParagon application ecosystem a set of solutions based on gamification mechanisms and artificial intelligence, motivating users of the application to permanently change consumer behaviors and shopping habits towards health-promoting and eco-friendly ones.
The idea of the solution assumes that the application user selects one or more of nine defined motivations. Based on data read from receipts entered by this person into the application, their purchases are analyzed with respect to the selected motivation. The user is motivated by points and subsequent ranks earned in the competition and supported by an interactive, automatic AI Assistant who sends personalized messages related to the chosen motivation and actual purchases made. The solution is interdisciplinary, combining ICT technologies, artificial intelligence and big data analytics with knowledge in psychology, sociology, dietetics, and ecology.
Motivation areas
Nine motivation areas are defined in the project:
1. Economical shopping,
2. I care about health,
3. I quit smoking,
4. I limit alcohol,
5. Less sweets,
6. I'm eco-friendly,
7. I do not waste food,
8. Good because Polish,
9. I buy locally.
This order covers solely five areas: motivations 2–6 ("I care about health", "I quit smoking", "I limit alcohol", "less sweets", "I'm eco-friendly"). The remaining motivations are implemented by the Contracting Authority's own resources or within separate project tasks.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT
The subject of the contract is the realization of research services consisting of recognizing mechanisms determining people's behaviors in the area of motivations 2–6 and developing a comprehensive, specialized knowledge base for these five areas.
The service includes developing expert knowledge, among others in dietetics and psychodietetics, human nutrition, food technology, classification of food and consumer products, motivational mechanisms and habit formation, addiction psychology and health effects of addictions, as well as ecology and prosocial behaviors. For each of the five motivations, the Contractor will prepare a data package including criteria allowing unambiguous definition and classification of product groups, lists of products assigned to a given motivation, product parameters, rules for assigning products to motivations, and psychological (especially in the field of addiction psychology) and communication knowledge necessary to build effective motivational messages.
The purpose of the contract is to prepare substantive material constituting a direct basis for training and feeding the AI Assistant (AI chat), building product classification models, and developing the recommendation and motivational logic of the PanParagon application. The contract is research in nature and does not include programming work, system architecture design, or database construction, which are implemented under separate orders.
All works under the contract must be based on current scientific knowledge and applicable guidelines of national and international organizations (including WHO, EFSA, Ministry of Health), and each criterion, classification, recommendation, and description must include the source reference.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT
General requirements for the development
1. Results must be prepared based on current scientific knowledge and must not directly contradict or undermine guidelines of national and international organizations (including WHO, EFSA, Ministry of Health, National Center for Nutritional Education), as at the date of delivery of the work results.
2. Results must be prepared in a way enabling their direct technical use, i.e., in a structured form, terminologically consistent and suitable for import into databases and for training language models. Catalog-type data (parameters, product lists, criteria, rules) shall be delivered as spreadsheets (e.g., .xlsx files or equivalents), and descriptive elaborations in editable text formats (e.g., .docx files or equivalents).
3. The structure of the knowledge base (layout of sheets, columns, dictionaries, identifiers, relationships between records) is subject to agreement with the Contracting Authority during the first working consultation.
4. The Contracting Authority requires all elaborations to relate to the realities of the Polish retail market – in particular to products actually available in Polish retail chains (especially food products, and where applicable for a given motivation, non-food products and purchases) and the way they are described on receipts.
5. Health-related content (especially descriptions of health effects, recommendations regarding preventive tests, supplementation, and interactions of substances) must be informational and educational only and must not constitute medical advice or diagnosis. The part concerning interactions of medicinal substances with alcohol (motivation 4) should include pharmaceutical/medical recommendations.
6. Product lists mentioned in the product catalog must include at least 5,000 product items for each motivation. The Contracting Authority accepts an agreed lower threshold at the first working consultation if the Contractor demonstrates that the actual number of products available on the market for a given motivation is lower.
Scope of information common to motivations 2–6
For each of the five motivations (2 – I care about health, 3 – I quit smoking, 4 – I limit alcohol, 5 – less sweets, 6 – I'm eco-friendly) the Contractor will develop a package including the following elements:
1. Catalogue of classification criteria. A set of criteria allowing unambiguous, mutually exclusive, and measurable definitions of particular product groups within a given motivation, both desired products (scored) and undesired products (basis for generating discouraging messages). Criteria must be formulated to allow algorithmization (threshold values, ranges, logical conditions), not only descriptive.
2. Catalogue of product parameters. List of parameters considered when evaluating a product within a given motivation, with definitions of each parameter, unit of measure, permissible value range, source of data acquisition, and indication if the parameter is mandatory or supplementary.
3. Lists of products assigned to motivations. Lists of specific products or, in justified cases agreed with the Contracting Authority, product categories available on the Polish market qualified to particular groups within a given motivation, including product name, producer, product category, and parameter values indicated in the parameter catalogue. The lists include both food products and – where applicable for a given motivation – non-food products and purchases.
4. Rules for assigning products to motivations. Description of rules allowing assignment of items appearing on receipts to the correct product group and motivation, considering diverse, abbreviated, and non-uniform ways of recording product names on receipts in different retail networks. Rules also include indications of borderline cases and how to resolve them.
5. Psychological and communication knowledge. For the entire contract (covering motivations 2–6) the Contractor will produce:
a. description of basic psychological mechanisms responsible for the development and maintenance of addictions;
b. description of basic communication mechanisms and techniques supporting addiction recovery;
c. description of basic communication mechanisms and techniques supporting motivational processes and habit building.
Separately, for each motivation, the Contractor will prepare a description of psychological aspects of change relevant to the area, indicating which types of messages are effective and which are counterproductive (including messages to avoid due to risk of defensive reaction, shame, or discouragement).
6. Data sets for training the AI Assistant. A structured set of content intended to feed and train the AI chat, including for each motivation: substantive knowledge in accessible, verified form, scenarios and patterns of messages assigned to typical shopping situations, rules for selecting the message according to situation and stage of change, as well as a list of unacceptable content and phrases (including medical advice, diagnosis, content that may cause guilt or stigmatization).
7. Source materials and bibliography. Complete set of source materials used in the preparation of all the above elements, together with bibliography.
8. Documentation describing the knowledge base structure. Description of the layout and logic of the knowledge base, meaning of individual fields and dictionaries, versioning and content update rules, relationships between elements, and instructions enabling the Contracting Authority's team to independently manage and expand the base.
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Category: Service / Research services
CPV: 72314000-9 Data collection and consolidation services, 73100000-3 Research and experimental development services, 73110000-6 Research services, 73210000-7 Consulting services in research
Place of execution: Poznań, Poznań-Stare Miasto municipality, Greater Poland Voivodeship
Evaluation criteria for bids:
- GROSS PRICE.
Points will be awarded under this criterion according to the following formula:
An = Cmin / Cr * 100 * 100%
Cmin – minimum price among offers not subject to rejection
Cr – price of the evaluated offer
An – number of points awarded to the offer
Participation conditions:
- Persons capable of executing the contract: FULL DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENTS IS IN THE DOCUMENT "REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL 3_2026"
Contracting parties may apply who have or will have at the stage of contract execution a team including all of the following three roles:
ROLE R1. Expert in nutrition and food products:
- higher education in one of the areas: dietetics, human nutrition, food technology, commodity science, public health, biotechnology, pharmacy, agriculture or related
- involvement in at least 2 undertakings (research project, advisory service, expert report, educational program, commercial implementation, scientific publication in a journal included in the ministerial list of scientific journals) concerning nutrition, food technology, public health, evaluation or classification of food products OR at least 3 years of professional practice in this area (e.g. scientific activity in research institutions, laboratories, dietetic office, etc.).
ROLE R2. Expert in psychology
- higher education: psychology, cognitive science, sociology, health sciences, medical sciences, pharmacy, biology, pedagogy, public health or related
- involvement in at least 2 undertakings (research project, advisory service, expert report, educational program, commercial implementation, scientific publication in a journal included in the ministerial list of scientific journals) concerning behavior or habit change, addiction prevention, health psychology, persuasive/motivational communication, consumer behavior research or behavioral intervention design OR at least 3 years of professional practice in this area (e.g. scientific activity in research institutions, laboratories, psychological office, etc.)
ROLE R3. Specialist in data structuring and knowledge bases
- education: no specific field requirement
- involvement in at least 1 undertaking (research project, advisory service, expert report, educational program, commercial implementation) including preparation of structured data sets, taxonomies, catalogs, dictionaries, knowledge bases or content for IT systems (including AI, ML, recommendation systems, search or analytics)
Supplementary conditions:
1. Study leader: The Contractor shall assign the study leader role to a person fulfilling either role R1 or R2. This person must hold at least a doctoral degree in the discipline and field consistent with the profile of the role to which they are assigned, namely:
a. for role R1 – agricultural sciences (disciplines: food technology and nutrition, agriculture and horticulture, animal science and fishery), medical sciences and health sciences (disciplines: medical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, health sciences) or natural sciences (discipline: biological sciences);
b. for role R2 – social sciences (disciplines: psychology, pedagogy, sociology, social communication and media studies) or medical sciences and health sciences (discipline: health sciences).
2. For degrees awarded before October 1, 2018, the Contracting Authority recognizes disciplines corresponding as above according to the classification in force at the time the degree was awarded. Degrees obtained abroad are recognized provided the document confirming recognition in the Republic of Poland is presented.
3. Personnel requirements are assessed separately for each person listed in the List of persons. Combining experience or qualifications of several people to meet one role's requirements is not allowed.
Rules for role assignment:
1. The Contractor shall designate at least 2 different named individuals for roles R1 and R2 for contract execution.
2. One person may hold more than one role if they individually meet all requirements for each assigned role. The study leader is a person assigned to role R1 or R2.
3. The person performing the role of R3 is not named by the Contractor at the offer submission stage. In the List of persons, the Contractor declares that during the execution of the contract they will have a person meeting the requirements specified for the role R3.
4. The Contractor shall submit to the Contracting Authority, within 7 days from the date of contract conclusion and no later than before the commencement of works under this role, the named person performing the role R3 together with documents confirming the fulfillment of the requirements specified for this role. If the indicated person does not meet the requirements, the Contracting Authority calls on the Contractor to indicate another person within 7 days. Failure to meet this deadline constitutes grounds for withdrawal from the contract for reasons attributable to the Contractor.
5. The role of R3 may be performed by a person performing the role of R1 or R2 if they meet the requirements specified for the role R3.
6. Experience and qualifications are assessed separately for each person; summing up the experience of several people to meet the requirements of one role is not allowed. The same project may be presented to confirm the requirements of several roles performed by the same person if they meet the criteria of each of those roles.
7. Changing the person during the contract execution is only allowed to a person with qualifications and experience not lower than required for the given role, subject to the written acceptance of the Contracting Authority (in accordance with section XIV).
DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD OF CONFIRMING THE FULFILLMENT OF CONDITIONS AND RULES FOR SUBMITTING JOINT OFFERS OR WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF A SUBCONTRACTOR IS LOCATED IN THE DOCUMENT "REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS 3_2026".
- Additional participation conditions: BID BOND:
The Contracting Authority requires contractors participating in the procedure to provide a bid bond in the amount of PLN 3,000.00:
1. The bid bond must be submitted before the offer submission deadline and maintained continuously until the expiry of the binding offer period.
2. The offer binding period is 30 days, with the first day of the binding period being the day following the offer submission deadline.
3. The bid bond may be provided at the Contractor's choice in one or several of the following forms:
a. cash,
b. bank guarantees,
c. insurance guarantees,
d. sureties granted by entities referred to in Article 6b section 5 point 2 of the Act of November 9, 2000, on the establishment of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2025, item 98).
4. The bid bond submitted in cash should be paid by bank transfer to the account number
83 1020 1068 0000 1102 0389 2304 with the payment title indicating: “Bid bond to secure the offer in procedure no. 3/2026.”
5. Payment of the bid bond in cash will be effective if credited to the Contracting Authority’s bank account within the specified deadline. The Contracting Authority keeps the cash bid bond in the bank account.
6. Bid bonds provided as guarantees or sureties, as mentioned in point 3 subpoints b-d, must be submitted to the Contracting Authority together with the Offer in the original electronic form, i.e., signed with qualified electronic signatures of persons authorized to issue them. The bid bond must secure the offer for the entire binding period. Offers from Contractors who fail to provide the bid bond or provide it improperly, or do not maintain it continuously until the expiry of the binding period, or apply for its refund, will be rejected from the procedure.
7. The content of the bid guarantee must include the following elements:
a. the name of the ordering party (Contractor), the beneficiary of the guarantee/surety (Contracting Authority), the guarantor (bank or insurance institution granting the guarantee/surety), and indication of their seats,
b. specification of the claim to be secured by the guarantee/surety – specifying the subject of the contract,
c. the amount of the guarantee/surety,
d. the guarantor’s/surety provider’s obligation to pay unconditionally and irrevocably the amount of the guarantee/surety on the first written demand of the Contracting Authority, in situations where the Contractor whose offer was selected refuses to sign the contract or does not enter into it within 14 days from the announcement of the procedure results.
8. The bid bond will be refunded promptly after the conclusion of the procedure.
9. The Contracting Authority shall return the cash bid bond with interest resulting from the bank account agreement on which it was held, reduced by bank account maintenance fees and bank transfer commissions to the bank account from which the Contractor paid the bid bond.
10. The Contracting Authority returns the bid bond provided in forms other than cash by submitting a statement of release of the bid bond to the guarantor or surety provider.
11. In the case of Contractors jointly applying for the contract, the bid bond may be submitted by one or several of them. The bid bond provided as a guarantee or surety must name all contractors jointly applying or state that it secures the jointly submitted offer, including the other contractors. A guarantee or surety issued only to one contractor without such indication does not properly secure the offer.