Abstract

The paper examines how public money has been spent in public procurement in Bulgaria in recent years. With the adoption of a completely new Public Procurement Act in force since 15 April 2016, the Bulgarian legislator introduced the well-known in other EU Member States procedure - "innovation partnership". The main function of this procedure has been clarified - to create real preconditions for building a long-term partnership between budgetary institutions and private business, with the development and purchase of a completely innovative product as the basis of this partnership, and with the financing to be done entirely with public funds. In this way, the State becomes an investor in research and innovation, which then serves, on the one hand, to meet the needs of the particular client and, on the other, to improve the life of society. In this context, the steps to be taken in the innovation partnership procedure, its characteristics and its application in practice are outlined.