The prestigious Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant of over $2.4 million was recently awarded to the Diversity Institute. The grant money will be used to undertake a research project over six years examining the barriers faced by women and diverse groups such as immigrants, racialized people, indigenous people and persons with disabilities. It will also lead on strategies to strengthen an inclusive innovative and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The project has a goal of engaging more than 1000 stakeholder organizations and 100,000 entrepreneurs.

The Diversity Institute bid was supported by OWIT-Toronto. The grant is quite timely to help bring to light a gender and diversity lens to entrepreneurship, identify barriers and, more importantly, recommend practices to overcome these barriers in order to drive forward an inclusive economic recovery. The research project will leverage work being done by the Future Skills Centre and the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub.

“We know that women and diverse groups continue to face systemic barriers,” says Prof Wendy Cukier, Founder Diversity Institute, Ted Rogers School of Management and Professor of Entrepreneurship, Ryerson University. “As Canada responds to the pandemic, preliminary research shows that women and diverse groups are disproportionality impacted and there is a risk that we will lose the traction we have gained on gender and diversity.”