A model assessing innovativeness of administration units awarding public contracts as a tool to conduct economic policy of the state

In today's market economy factors concerning knowledge, new technologies and innovative solutions are essential for economic development. However, the Polish economy, despite its high innovation potential compared to other European Union countries, is characterized by a very low level of innovativeness. Implementing this potential is conditioned with an appropriate economic policy of the state and rational approach to its resources and legal solutions. One of the possibilities of such an action is the use of public procurement instrument through which it is possible to more effectively create demand for innovative products and services. As shown by literature studies, the achievements of the subject literature associated with the creation of demand for innovations by public administration in Poland have been very modest. This gap is recognized the article and it attempts to build a model for assessing the innovativeness of these units. Network thinking methodology was used to build the model. As a result, after the identification of factors affecting the conduct of an innovative public procurement, a network of links was established between them and examined in terms of type, intensity and duration of exposure. Building a model according to the methodology, the opinions of experts have been used along with long-term observations conducted in the course of participation in all kinds of conferences and trainings. The model was also subjected to validation in two selected units.