Performance-based funding transferability: a comparative policy analysis of Tennessee and Ontario with implications for Saudi higher education

Performance-based funding (PBF) is often treated as portable, although arrangements carrying the label differ in how performance is defined, governed, and linked to institutional revenue. This study asks what can be learned from PBF experience when the receiving context differs. It uses qualitative comparative policy analysis and directed qualitative content analysis to compare documentary evidence from Tennessee and Ontario across five dimensions: governance arrangements, institutional differentiation, data capacity, implementation conditions, and equity protections. Tennessee places the allocative rule within a legally anchored statewide formula. Ontario uses a hybrid architecture in which performance-linked funding operates through bilateral Strategic Mandate Agreements. Similar policy purposes are carried through different institutional mechanisms, requiring different administrative capacities. Applied to Saudi higher education, the findings point to selective adaptation. Neither arrangement provides a model for adoption. Credible adaptation would require a defined funding purpose, legal authority, a viable financial attachment point, auditable data, mission-sensitive differentiation, staged implementation, and equity protections built into the design. Available evidence does not establish readiness for a high-stakes national arrangement. The study develops design translation as a component-level approach to policy learning. It begins with a component’s policy function and then considers how its institutional form might change in the receiving context.