The globalization of nursing knowledge

External influences placed upon nurses working in universities and in clini cal practice require them to attract research funding, carry out research, generate new knowledge and publish in national and international journals. While there does not appear to be an agreed, unified body of nursing knowle dge, critical and scholarly debate is essential to generate knowledge, but this is not an activity in which the majority of nurses can effectively par ticipate. Nevertheless, nurses in the Western world are free to communicate their research, theories or ideas, essentially uncensored, to a vast invis ible audience, and there is global dissemination through a vast array of li terature and educational materials. This paper challenges nurses to examine the implications of globalization and suggests that the continuing debate on the nature of nursing knowledge should be updated to include considerati on of both a change in philosophical stance and the far reaching effects of global dissemination of information. (C) 2000 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.