How to supercharge economic and civic growth through shared digital infrastructure

#OpenScotland is Scotland’s shared national home for community, enterprise, and civic collaboration. It connects local groups and national programmes in one digital space and makes it easier for people to organise, learn, and deliver on shared priorities. It also strengthens the wider enterprise and skills ecosystem by helping partners coordinate activity more effectively across regions.

Community Lab provides the infrastructure that powers #OpenScotland. Partners use it to run learning cohorts, support enterprise activity, coordinate local development work, and maintain ongoing engagement across regions and sectors. The platform is designed to scale, allowing multiple organisations to adopt the same structure without bespoke development or added complexity.

Why Community Lab?

Scotland has a pressing need of a solution that connects people across councils, economic agencies, industry networks, colleges, charities, and community organisations. The aim is to reduce duplication, strengthen collaboration, and give programme leads a simple way to manage groups, share resources, and report on activity. Community Lab meets these needs by offering a national platform that supports accessible design, long-term engagement, consistent delivery, and evidence gathering for local and national priorities.

How is Community Lab used?

Groups, events, and chat features allow local and national partners to work together in real time. The resources section acts as a shared learning bank for videos, worksheets, guides, and project materials. Clustering helps organise many groups into a clear structure, making it easy to broadcast content, align delivery, and maintain coordination across a diverse network. This provides a repeatable model that regions can adopt and grow.

What is the change?

#OpenScotland helps partners connect with more people, deepen programme impact, and reduce organisational workload through streamlined administration and clearer coordination. It strengthens visibility across Scotland’s civic and enterprise landscape and supports more consistent delivery in both local and national contexts. For economic development partners, this means more productive collaboration, better resource leverage, and stronger outcomes for communities and local economies.

‍