BEKH Launches National Data Repository on Black Entrepreneurship
For years, much of what was known about Black entrepreneurship in Canada came through scattered reports, informal accounts, or limited datasets. These sources often lacked consistency, detail, or accessibility. With the launch of its national data repository, the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH) is taking a different approach.
The repository is now publicly available on Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository. It contains anonymized data collected through BEKH’s 2024 National Survey on Black Entrepreneurship. This is one of the most extensive studies of its kind, drawing from over 2,300 responses from Black business owners across Canada. More than a place to store survey results, the repository is intended as a long-term public resource. It is meant to support researchers, policymakers, community organizations, and students working to understand the conditions and contributions of Black entrepreneurs in Canada. “Access to data about Black entrepreneurs and their businesses is a significant problem faced by Black entrepreneurs themselves and entities serving and supporting them,” says Dr. Gerald Grant, BEKH Co-lead and Principal Investigator. “Such data, even when collected through research in the community, is often inaccessible, locked away in private repositories open only to a select few.”
BEKH’s decision to publish the repository on Borealis reflects its commitment to transparency and open access. The design aligns with the FAIR principles by making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The data is available in both English and French. “By design, the BEKH seeks to make all its data accessible to members of the Black entrepreneurial ecosystem and the public as much as it is possible,” Dr. Grant adds. “This represents one of the first instances of data on Black entrepreneurship being publicly available to anyone wishing to access it.”
Why a Repository Matters
The dataset includes dozens of variables, such as incorporation status, funding sources, revenue size, motivations, and long-term goals. It has been cleaned and weighted to reflect the national distribution of Black business owners by gender and region. Offering this dataset in both official languages allows researchers and practitioners to go beyond generalized insights. They can identify trends by geography, business size, language, or other meaningful categories. “Data on Black entrepreneurship in Canada is essential for understanding the opportunities and challenges faced by Black entrepreneurs and for creatively responding to them so that Black-owned businesses can prosper in the Canadian marketplace,” Dr. Grant explains. “Good data is necessary to develop appropriate policy and practice interventions to serve entrepreneurs.”
One of the longstanding barriers to meaningful research in this area has been fragmentation. Existing data is often siloed, incomplete, or held in systems that were not developed with community input. This makes it difficult to compare findings across time or develop targeted, evidence-based solutions. BEKH’s repository offers a clear alternative. It is open to the public and serves both academic and community-based research. As new survey waves and regional studies are completed, additional data will be added to strengthen the foundation for ongoing research. “Data should be widely available so that data users can provide innovative and creative solutions to the myriad of issues that entrepreneurs face,” says Dr. Grant. “It opens the opportunity for the community to collaboratively find solutions to issues that arise in the process of building and operating a business.”
An Open Invitation
This first release of the repository sets a precedent. It signals that Black entrepreneurship in Canada is not a marginal topic but a field that deserves rigorous, sustained study. BEKH invites researchers across disciplines and sectors to explore the dataset and contribute to a shared body of knowledge. “Research on Black entrepreneurship is a collaborative endeavour,” says Dr. Grant. “Researchers, both academic and community-based, are invited to use the data to pursue new or confirmatory research. The outputs will enhance our understanding of Black entrepreneurship in Canada, and that, in turn, will strengthen the repository of evidence-based research needed for effective policy and practice.”