International evaluation of the National Natural Science Foundation of China: A process of evaluation-enabled policy transfer

Evaluation-enabled policy transfer plays an important role in global policy formulation and change. This paper examines the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s international funding and management evaluation to identify the characteristic of evaluation-enabled policy transfer. Findings include: first, performance accountability, learning motivations, and desire for commitment of policy legitimacy are policy transfer inducements of policymakers; second, evaluation-enabled policy transfer realizes framing-transmitting and embedding-localizing through evaluation design from policymakers, matching of international ‘best practices’ by experts, and adaptive construction; third, it is necessary to introduce ‘information broker’, cultivate harmonious engagement between evaluation experts and policymakers, and ensure adaptive knowledge localization.