Globalisation and convergence in educational policy worldwide has reinvigorated, while rendering more complex, the classic theme of educational transfer. Framed by this wider pursuit of new understandings of a changing transfer/context puzzle, this paper explores how an ethnographic "thick description" might complement and extend recent research. Specifically, it relates findings from extended ethnographic work on an attempt by a prominent Japanese university to "import" the Council of Europe's Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This rare case of explicit "borrowing" from a supranational space directly to the domestic institutional level, when approached in such a way, suggests new insights to help the field refine understandings of the processes, "shape-shifting", and "success" of international policy migration. (Contains 3 notes and 1 figure.)