Policy transfer features prominently in the policy analysis literature, yet relatively little is known about how government officials seek to learn lessons in practice.This research, based on interviews with officials in government institutes in South Korea who were involved in a series of study visits to the United Kingdom, addresses this knowledge gap using Evans and Davies policy transfer network model.We suggest refinements to their model and conclude that there are significant barriers to policy transfer,that cross-national lesson drawing activities rarely leads directly to policy change but is a valuable part of ongoing processes of policy learning.