Knowledge “transfer” through an international partnership program between Canada and China: A case study

International partnerships have been promoted globally as a means to facilitate knowledge transfer in the health professions. Based on a case study of a partnership program between two major children’s hospitals in Canada and China, this paper explores the nature of the knowledge “transferred” through such programs, as well as the conditions enabling and/or inhibiting knowledge transfer as a social process. The study shows that through the program, Chinese medical doctors and to some extent Canadian trainers have learned in multiple ways, which can be captured as ways of doing, ways of knowing and ways of being. The study suggests that this process of knowledge transfer is facilitated through the use of immersive and dialogical pedagogies, sustained through networking actors (human and non-human), and shaped by institutional visions and support. The study also pinpoints that, given the organizational, institutional and social and cultural differences, knowledge transfer is necessarily a process of translation and transformation. The research findings have significant implications for practitioners involved in international partnership development. In particular, they supply us with a multiple-dimensional and ecological understanding of the possibilities and challenges associated with knowledge transfer through international partnership programs.