The International Knowledge System: Transfer and the Transferors--Transforming the System.

Connections between the international exchange of persons and the larger system for the exchange of knowledge are discussed, along with the use of policy-relevant knowledge. Two examples of knowledge exchange are considered: (1) judgments about quality in higher education policy in Britain and the United States; and (2) the construction of new campus-to-campus relationships between U.S. and Chinese universities. Extensive knowledge flow between Great Britain and the United States is linked to political and economic factors that have posed similar problems to higher education. The connection between the exchange of persons and other channels for communication is apparent at two levels: many U.S. and British policymakers have spent substantial time in the other country as students and professionals; and many difficult decisions have been made using similar standards of judgment with only limited understanding of how similar problems are confronted in the other country. U.S. and Chinese exchanges, on the other hand, have involved a relatively small number of u.S. campuses, and the growth of other knowledge exchange systems has been much more limited and largely one way (from the United States to China), since relationships have been dependent upon formal systems. Six questions for further consideration are posed. (SW)