Polish sports ministry denies funding flawed national brand report by government plenipotentiary

Scrutiny over national brand publication

A 26-page study titled "Polaków Portret Własny. Raport z badań DNA marki Polska" faced public scrutiny after analysts identified widespread factual errors, unusual phrasing, and broken citations. The publication lists dr hab. Barbara Mróz-Gorgoń, the government plenipotentiary for the promotion of the Polish brand appointed on 31 July 2026, as lead author and substantive project manager. The project was prepared by the Fundacja Marka Polska Think Tank alongside Kozminski University. Sebastian Meitz, an expert at the Sobieski Institute, published a series of findings on social media pointing to anomalies that resembled outputs from generative artificial intelligence models.

Ministry denies funding the document

Following public criticism on 20 August 2026, the Ministry of Sport and Tourism released an official statement disavowing the report. The ministry stated that the publication was not commissioned under its public task agreement. It also maintained that no permission had been granted for the use of its ministerial logo.

The report presented on Platform X was not subject to an order, nor did it constitute the implementation of any contract to which the Ministry of Sport and Tourism was a party.

The ministry explained that it had signed an agreement on 5 June 2025 with the Stowarzyszenie Konferencje i Kongresy w Polsce for the Marka Polska tourism sub-strategy. The ministry accepted a project settlement of 179,738.19 PLN out of a 200,000 PLN budget for surveys, workshops, and the "Przyszłość Marki Polska" conference. However, critics noted that the document itself explicitly cites contract number 2025/0014/1251/UDOT/DT/BP/IS, and Deputy Minister Piotr Borys had attended the formal presentation of the report at Kozminski University in Warsaw on 25 November 2025.

Factual inaccuracies and textual anomalies

The report contained multiple geographical and demographic anomalies. It described the southern city of Katowice as located in the "northern center" of Poland. It also claimed that 95% of young Poles speak fluent English, while asserting widespread fluency in German, French, and Mandarin. In the reference list, the document cited the World Bank "Doing Business" ranking, which was discontinued five years ago. Footnote numbering followed an irregular sequence, jumping from footnote 3 directly to 41 and 517, alongside empty citations and repeated use of the English abbreviation "n.d." for undated entries.

Piotr Zychowicz, a historian and author of the "Historia realna" channel, criticized the publication for using ungrammatical Polish mixed with corporate English terminology. He cited excerpts mentioning "historii sufferingu", "FATIGUE KONSUMENCKIEJ", and "SYNDROM IMPOSTORA na POZIOMIE NARODOWYM". Zychowicz also noted that the presence of the national White Eagle emblem on such a document compromised government standards.

Author explanation and academic scrutiny

Mróz-Gorgoń responded on social media to address the accusations surrounding the text. She asserted that the substantive research followed social science methodology while acknowledging auxiliary use of automated tools.

The role of generative artificial intelligence models was deliberately limited to an auxiliary (non-authorial) stage, covering support in testing hypotheses.

Speaking on Polsat News, Mróz-Gorgoń described the circulated text as an unverified working draft. She stated that the document was created during the research process.

This is a report that was created during ongoing research. It served as a transitional element, nothing more. It should not have entered the public space, that is true.

The controversy prompted researchers to review other academic publications co-authored by Mróz-Gorgoń. An analysis by a University of Warsaw researcher identified chronological errors in an earlier paper, including dating a 2023 Coca-Cola campaign to 2022 and misnaming the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing as the Journal of Research in Indian Medicine. The researcher noted that the published supplementary material contained only 194 words without providing data sources.