The Diversity Institute's Learning Initiatives

The Diversity Institute (DI) leads research to address the needs of diverse Canadians through the lenses of employment, innovation and skills.

In partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University's Ted Rogers School of Management, DI has been at the forefront of promoting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as essential to Canada's competitiveness for more than two decades. Led by its founder and academic director, Dr. Wendy Cukier, DI has 130 full-time staff that work with more than 100 research collaborators and 250 partner organizations across sectors and industries. With its extensive cross-country network, DI brings together businesses, non-profits and equity-seeking groups seeking to drive change at the individual, organizational and societal levels.

The Diversity Institute leads the Government of Canada's Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub and is the research lead for the $360-million Future Skills Centre. It also leads innovative programs, like the Advanced Digital and Professional Training program.

Through multi-disciplinary research, DI seeks to understand barriers to inclusion of equity-­deserving groups in the workplace and identifies, develops and scales approaches to make workplaces more inclusive. Central to this is showing that diversity in leadership not only signals who belongs; it also is linked to organizational performance.