Research guides: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, & Commercialization: Openly Available Resources

Openly Available Resources for Entrepreneurs

This page is a near-comprehensive list of the resources listed throughout the rest of this guide. The resources on the page are listed as openly available because access to much of the information in these sources is freely available and does not depend on your affiliation with the University of Waterloo. Some resources will require a login in order to access and download information.

Reports and Papers

Deloitte
Industry and Consumer trend reports from consulting firm Deloitte.
KPMG Reports
Short reports on various industries from KPMG Consulting Firm.
McKinsey & Company
Featured Insights reports from consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Requires you to create a free account to read the reports in full.
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Research insights on current industries trends within Canadian, and across the Global - (reports downloadable)
RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND Corporation engages in research and development (R&D) in a number of fields and industries.
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
The World Bank is the largest single source of development knowledge. The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank. The foundation's stated mission is "improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas". View their published reports for overviews on topics like energy and AI.

Statistics and Data

Canadian Industry Statistics
Canadian Industry Statistics (CIS) analyses industry data on many economic indicators using the most recent data from Statistics Canada. CIS looks at industry trends and financial information, such as GDP, Labour Productivity, Manufacturing and Trade data.
Search by keyword or NAICS code.
CIHI - Canadian Institute for Health Information
CIHI is an independent, not-for-profit organization, which publishes a range of statistical tables, reports and analyses.
CIHI Patient Cost Estimator
This CIHI tool allows you to estimate the average cost of various services provided in hospitals.
EDGAR
All U.S. publicly-traded companies are required to file their annual documents (10-K) and quarterly documents (10-Q) into the SEC’s EDGAR database. Using the SEC site, you can search by company name or use a ticker symbol.
European Commission Industry Profiles
Reports on the top industries and sectors within the European Union.
Financial Performance Data
Provides financial bench marking data for businesses in Canadian industries by Province. This includes profit margins, proportion of companies that are profitable and a breakdown of expenses.
First Nations Data Centre
The First Nations Data Centre is a Knowledge Translation resource from FNIGC that provides access to published, unpublished, and record-level data from our respected national survey work.
Forbes Global 2000
Each year, Forbes uses data from FactSet Research systems to screen for the biggest public companies in four metrics: sales, profits, assets and market value.
GlobalEDGE
Created by the International Business Center and the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University (IBC), globalEDGE™ is a knowledge web-portal that connects international business professionals worldwide to a wealth of information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities.
Government of Canada Industry Sector Intelligence
Statistics, market intelligence and business resources for each industry sector.
Health Infobase
Data tools, infographics, charts and blogs about health data in Canada, including diseases and disorders, drugs and vaccines, healthy living and environment, injuries and death, population groups and substance use from various Canadian government agencies.
Health Statistics
From Statistics Canada, provides data and insights about the health of the population, determinants of health and the scope and utilization of Canada's health care resources.
Key Small Business Statistics
Statistical reports on important topics related to small and medium businesses. This will include but is not limited to data on revenue, growth and financing.
ODESI
ODESI is a data portal containing Statistics Canada surveys and much more. You can search for specific survey questions and see how Canadians responded.
OECD Data Explorer
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a unique forum where the governments of 37 democracies with market-based economies collaborate to develop policy standards to promote sustainable economic growth.
SEDAR
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) is a body of thirteen provincial and territorial securities regulatory authorities. You can search for profiles of private and public companies, investment funds, investment fund groups, and other parties filing in SEDAR+.
Statistics Canada Census Program Data Viewer Dashboard
A visual mapping tool that allows you to compare data from the 2016 and 2021 Censuses of Population.
Statistics Canada Infographics
Infographics about popular topics in Canada, eg. "Patterns in Online Banking" or "Income of Canadians".
U.S. Census Bureau
Access to Census Population Map, The American FactFinder, QuickFacts, Censtats, Business Dynamics Statistics.
U.S Bureau of Labor Industries at a Glance
Data for over 100 industries, available in Alphabetical order by industry or NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) number order.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Data for the Sustainable Development Goals
UN SDG Data Hub
The Open SDG Data Hub promotes the exploration, analysis, and use of authoritative SDG data sources for evidence-based decision-making and advocacy. Its goal is to enable data providers, managers and users to discover, understand, and communicate patterns and interrelationships in the wealth of SDG data and statistics that are now available.
UN Social Indicators
Data on: Population, Child-bearing, Youth and elderly populations, Education, Human settlements, Literacy, Water supply and sanitation, Income and economic activity, Housing, Unemployment, and Health.
World Bank Open Data
Free and open access to global development data.

Directories and Information Management Systems

Aurora SDG Search Queries
Search Queries for "Mapping Research Output to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)" in the Scopus database. Searches could be adaptable to other research databases.
CRA - List of Charities
Registered charities and non-profits report their financials to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Directories of Canadian Companies
Includes information about registering as a Canadian supplier, searching for competitors and checking a company's incorporation status.
NAICS
NAICS is a system for classifying businesses so that similar companies will be assigned the same NAICS code. It helps to know how industries are organized by code in order to find the closest related industry.

Frameworks and Learning Resources

Impact Gaps Canvas
The Impact Gaps Canvas was designed to help people learn about a problem before jumping in to try to solve it.
Student Guide to Mapping a System (PDF)
Review this 12 step guide to mapping a system. Mapping a system provides an opportunity to think about the context surrounding a challenge and the many interacting factors that contribute to its development – whether they are economic forces, political movements, or global trends.

Market Research Canvas
Adapted from the Business Model Canvas, this guide will help you on your market research journey. Consider each section using the databases provided on this site. Market Research Canvas adapted by Amanda Wheatley, 2019.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Business Information Skills Certificate: Research Guide
The Business Information Skills Certificate (BISC): Research Guide is designed to develop and progressively build business research skills for undergraduate learners.
Government of Canada: Conducting Market Research
The Government of Canada provides resources on how to conduct market research.
Marketing Plan Template
From BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada), this marketing plan resource is a road map to help you build your marketing strategy step by step. It will give your company the best chance of success in today’s competitive marketplace.
MaRS Startup Toolkit
MaRS helps Canada’s most promising founders build successful companies.
Explore advice, lessons and tips from MaRS' community of entrepreneurs and operators.
Value Proposition Canvas
Value Proposition Canvas is a tool for marketing experts, product owners, and value creators. This method from the bestselling innovation book Value Proposition Design is applied in leading organizations and start-ups worldwide.

Academic Resources

arXiv
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv.
bioRxiv
bioRxiv is a preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution. Preprints are openly available, but are not peer-reviewed.

Case Studies

Harvard Business Publishing - Education
HBR case studies can be made available to educators who register through their platform. Select "Register" to create a new account.
Ivey Publishing
Ivey Business School makes their case studies available to educators who register for an account on their platform. Select login/register to create a new account.