Community Stack Labs
Research, campaigns, and civic infrastructure.
Labs is where we work on the harder problems. Digital exclusion, SEND infrastructure, offline communities, communication access. The work here sits alongside the platform — it is the part of Community Stack that exists because the market will not fix these things on its own.
Research
We gather evidence on systemic gaps in civic and community infrastructure — digital exclusion, SEND provision, communication access, offline participation.
Campaign
We run sustained public campaigns targeting structural failures — not awareness drives, but efforts to change policy, practice, and infrastructure.
Build
Where campaigns identify missing tools or platforms, we build them. Switchboard came out of Labs. So did the third-sector discoverability work.
Why Labs exists
Some problems do not have a commercial solution.
The Ecosystem and Engine sides of Community Stack are commercially sustainable. That sustainability is what funds Labs — the part that works on problems the market consistently ignores or makes worse.
Digital exclusion, SEND infrastructure, offline participation — these are not niche edge cases. They affect millions of people. Labs exists because if we do not work on them, most of the organisations that could will not.
1 in 5
UK adults have very low digital skills
£20B+
estimated annual cost of digital exclusion
700,000+
SEND families navigate fragmented services
30,000+
charities lack any accessible digital presence
Research
Current themes
The questions Labs is actively working on. Not exhaustive — the most important work often starts with a conversation with someone experiencing the problem directly.
Digital exclusion and access
Who is not online, why, and what the realistic barriers are — beyond the standard narrative of affordability and device availability.
SEND infrastructure gaps
How the systems that should support children and families with special educational needs and disabilities actually work in practice, and where they fail.
Offline community resilience
What communities that operate without reliable digital infrastructure actually need, and how digital tools can support without excluding.
Third sector discoverability
Why charities and civic groups are so hard to find, and what better infrastructure for connecting people to support would look like.
Communication access
The infrastructure gap for non-speaking and AAC-dependent individuals — tools, training, attitudes, and system design.
Rural and isolated communities
The specific compounding disadvantages faced by communities in rural areas, and how digital and civic infrastructure intersects with geography.
Civic participation and digital tools
Whether digital tools genuinely increase civic participation or primarily benefit those already engaged — and what the evidence says.
Active Projects
What we are working on
Three live campaigns plus ongoing research and infrastructure projects. All progressing in public.
#NoCommunityLeftOffline
A national campaign working to ensure rural, isolated, and digitally excluded communities can access support and participate online — regardless of location, connectivity, or digital confidence.
Learn more#DigitalSENDInfrastructure
Campaigning for joined-up digital infrastructure for SEND families — making it easier to find, access, and navigate support across education, health, and social care.
Learn more#CommunicationForAll
Addressing the broken communication infrastructure for non-speaking and AAC-dependent individuals — advocating for universal access to communication tools and the support systems around them.
Learn moreThird Sector Discoverability
Mapping the structural reasons charities and civic groups are hard to find, and piloting better discovery infrastructure through Switchboard.
Register interestOffline Participation Toolkit
A practical resource for community organisers running activities for people with limited or no internet access — formats, facilitation guides, and case studies.
Register interestRural Digital Infrastructure Report
An evidence base on the compounding disadvantages faced by rural communities in accessing digital services — intended to inform policy advocacy and practical infrastructure investment.
Register interestWork With Labs
Partner with us
If you are working on a problem that overlaps with our research themes — or if you represent a community, organisation or institution affected by the issues we campaign on — we want to hear from you.
We work with community organisations, public sector bodies, charities, policy teams, and researchers. The engagement is always grounded in a specific, defined problem — not a general conversation about digital inclusion.
We work with
Identify the gap through community engagement and evidence gathering
Define the specific problem and desired outcome with affected communities
Select a pilot cohort — typically two to four communities or organisations
Deploy the intervention, tool, or framework change in a controlled way
Measure outcomes against a defined baseline with transparent methodology
Publish what we learned and move what worked into policy advocacy or product
How We Work
Research principles
Start with the people most excluded
We do not design for the average user. We design for the person with the most barriers, because if the infrastructure works for them, it works for everyone.
Campaigns grounded in evidence
The advocacy work is built on research. We do not campaign on assumptions — we gather evidence first, then act on it.
Open findings
Research outputs, policy papers, and frameworks are published openly. The point is to change things, not to own insight.
Community-led, not community-consulted
The people affected by the problems we work on are involved in defining them — not brought in to validate conclusions that were already drawn.
Long-term commitment
Civic infrastructure problems do not get solved in a quarter. The campaigns here are sustained efforts, not initiatives with an end date.