North Korea’s Science Center and the Affiliated Research Institutions
North Korea’s Science Center and the Affiliated Research Institutions
  • Choi Seong(sstar@nsu.ac.kr)
  • 승인 2011.03.09 12:34
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Choi Seong, Professor of computer science at Namseoul University

The central administrative organization

The central administration of the North Korea Science Center consists of three chambers, six departments, 20 bureaus, and one committee with 10 branch institutes and 41 affiliated research institutions. As shown in Figure 1, the policies related to science technologies are made within the Science Chamber while the Bureau of Science Planning makes plans for scientific research and the Bureau of Biological Science Guidance and Electric Machinery Science Guidance, etc., provide all technological support to the industries.

Although the specific number of researchers is still unknown, a North Korean government official once mentioned, in his speech "On New Turning Point of Science Research Undertaking," that thousands of hard-working scientists are contributing to research projects at the Science Center and that a sizeable proportion of them are in their 40s and 50s. There are a few notes to be made about the central administration of the Science Center in comparison to its predecessor prior to the organization's consolidation with the Science Technology Committee in 1998.

Before the consolidation, the administrative tasks were shared among the Science Technology Guidance Department; Natural Science Guidance Department; Science Exchange Department; Bureau of Data Planning; Science Technology Management Training Institute; Science Equipment Production Department; National Academic Development Committee; Integrated Workshop; and Data House, etc. And the merger consequently enhanced the role of the Science Chamber, Administration Supervision Department, and the Bureau of Science Planning in dealing with administration issues and planning, whereas other agencies such as the Bureau of External Science Supervision and Trade Management were granted bigger authority to evaluate and determine the ranks of research executives.

With heightened technical supervisory rights, the Technology Guidance Department concentrates on North Korea's major industries - namely, biology, electric machinery, metal extraction, chemical and light industry and the like - which draw an interesting contrast against China where the national science organization is focused on basic research and state-of-art technologies.

Seemingly, the reason for such disparity lies in the fact that the North Korean Science Center is devoted to improving technological support that can be immediately applied to production fields; in other words, while Chinese science institutions operate on academic departments, North Korea puts emphasis on practical technologies.

Missile technology, the epitome of North Korea

The affiliated research institutions

North Korean society's infamous exclusiveness and frequent restructuring and reform of national organizations pose extreme difficulty for outsiders to grasp an accurate picture of the country's current state. The data lately released by the Ministry of National Unification (see Figure 2), however, gives us a glimpse into the structure of the North Korea Science Center.

North Korea's research institutions went through a major change in late '80s when many new high-tech research institutions were established. In early 1990s, there were eight science-related departments, each in charge of biology, railway transport, machinery, construction, electric automation, metals, coal, and pharmaceutics and medical equipment; three local branches in Gangseo, Hamheung, and Songrim; and about 29 affiliated research institutions including those for astronomy and meteorology. However, in 1994, the government set up the Science Center into which all research organizations were integrated, and consequently left eight branch offices and one local branch as well as four research institutions for marine science, oriental medicine, medical science, and agricultural science. The institutions that studied traditional technologies such as machinery, metal, and pharmaceutics were separated as independent organizations before the cellular and genetic engineering research institution was newly built.

It was September 1998 when the National Science Center was restructured to its current form (see Figure 2). In addition to the number of departments and branches, several other changes were made and the marine science research institution remained while the other three institutions were brought back into the previous position.

The Central Agency for Science, Technology, and Information

Apart from the Science Center, the North Korean government founded the Central Agency for Science, Technology, and Information to provide, on its website, the latest science and technology news and introduce science-related products that are widely sold in many companies and stores across the country. In addition, the website allows users to read original text of various books published by the agency as well as to order some science and technology magazines from abroad.  Recently, the agency embraced more user-friendly services such as 'focused update service' that keeps the subscribers updated with the latest news of chosen fields; 'search service'; 'translation service'; and 'Q&A service' to consult questions relating to new technologies - and users can now even attend cyber lectures on subjects like computer and foreign languages through the internet.

Furthermore, the new services range from providing information on recent achievements of state-of-the-art agricultural science technology to data on the latest patented technologies and 'customized program development service' through which organizations and companies can ask for programming of task-related applications. Latest news reports that "recently, the number of users for the database of the Central Agency for Science, Technology, and Information is rapidly increasing," and that "the agency is also making efforts to expand its user base with various promotion activities."

 


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