DISCO was a transnational project, examining archaeological employment and barriers to transnational mobility within archaeology across 21 European countries. 23 archaeological organizations and institutions participated in the research. It was undertaken with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union and was a continuation of the research done between 2006 and 2008.
Data obtained from 21 countries enabled to analyse, compare, evaluate in depth the condition of archaeology as a discipline and relations between archaeological profession and labour market. Manifold aspects of archaeology were elaborated. Among them were these that concerned employment, growth of the sector, nature of the workforce, countries of origin, qualifications, salaries, nature of the work, structures, skills and training needs, trends and developments.
For the first time archaeologists obtained a holistic view of their profession in Europe. For example, it was estimated that 24,740 people work as archaeologists in the countries that took part in the project. Accordingly, there are approximately 33,000 archaeologists now across Europe. Another interesting point touched upon archaeologists as the workforce. It turned out that more women (50,3% to 49,7%) work as archaeologists. An average archaeologist in Europe is 40 years old. Only 1,1% of European archaeologists are disabled.
Archaeologists (94%) in Europe mostly work in their own countries of origin, 5% are from other EU states and 1% from elsewhere in the world. Similarly, most (78%) of the archaeologists included in the research worked full-time, only 22% part-time.
The idea behind the project was to prepare two kinds of reports. The first one was a transnational report which gathered and compared data from 21 countries. The second one was a national report which discussed archaeology in each country included in the research.
One of the partners of the project was the Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań which task was to research and assess the situation of archaeologists in Poland. The results are two reports discussing in detail the situation of Polish archaeologists. One was written in Polish, the second was prepared in English to enable a more comparative view of archaeology as a discipline in Europe.
The aim of the research was to gain a better understanding of the needs of the archaeological community. 916 archaeologists took part in the survey carried out by the Institute of Prehistory. According to the research in 2013, in Poland there were 233 institutions, both public and private that employed archaeologists. Obtained data enabled the Polish project partners to analyze the following issues, among others:
- Polish archaeological workforce,
- qualifications of archaeologists and their employment status,
- the size of institutions employing archaeologists,
- trends for numbers of archaeologists employed in the near future.
The obtained data allowed the project partners to collect and thoroughly analyse a number of important variables that could contribute to recognition of the current composition of the archaeological profession in Poland. It also enabled the Polish partners to elaborate a better definition of the needs of the archaeological community. The results may suggest the future of archaeological workforce and more general developments of archaeology in Poland in the years to come. DISCO makes it possible to compare, elaborate and contextualize the situation of archaeology as a discipline across Europe. Data from 21 European countries constitute a framework concerning understanding the condition of archaeology in the contemporary world.