Bunmi Obateru is Principal Investigator for a three-year, $360,000 NSERC-CCSIF research grant examining how Black African immigrant entrepreneurs engage with entrepreneurship training, mentoring, and innovation support programs across Alberta. A transdisciplinary doctoral student at the University of Calgary, she combines applied research, teaching, and community engagement to explore immigrant entrepreneurship, innovation ecosystems, and how entrepreneurs navigate business and support systems.

Her research is grounded in understanding intersectionality and the complex interactions between entrepreneurship, migration, culture, identity, education, policy, and economic development. Rather than simply documenting barriers, she investigates the assets, networks, knowledge, and strategies immigrant entrepreneurs bring to Alberta's economy—examining how they contribute to and transform the innovation ecosystem.

A defining feature of Obateru's work is her commitment to non-extractive, community-centered research. She believes research should create tangible value for the communities and organizations that contribute their knowledge. Her approach emphasizes co-creation and reciprocal learning, where entrepreneurs, nonprofits, policymakers, and researchers work as partners throughout the process. Through knowledge mobilization and capacity-building strategies, she helps immigrant-serving organizations understand how evidence-informed approaches can strengthen programs, influence policy, and generate sustainable solutions.

Her transdisciplinary methodology recognizes that challenges facing immigrant communities—economic integration, entrepreneurship, employment, social inclusion—are "wicked problems" requiring diverse forms of knowledge: academic expertise, lived experience, practitioner knowledge, and community wisdom. Rather than studying communities, she views research as collaborative work that strengthens community leadership, amplifies underrepresented voices, and creates pathways for economic and social impact.

Her expertise spans immigrant entrepreneurship, innovation ecosystems, entrepreneurship education, intersectionality, knowledge mobilization, transdisciplinary methodologies, and inclusive economic development.