The Academy of Sciences of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( ko, 조선민주주의인민공화국과학원) or State Academy of Sciences, formerly the National Academy of Sciences, is the national academy of sciences of

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

. It was founded in 1952, and until 1981 was responsible for all research conducted in the country before various organizational reforms and splittings of academies were conducted. Since 1980s the Academy has suffered from a long-term lack of funding, but it remains as a large and the most important scientific institution in the country. The Academy has played a role in the

nuclear weapons program of North Korea North Korea has a Korean People's Army, military nuclear weapon program, nuclear weapons program and, as of early 2020, is estimated to have an nuclear arsenal, arsenal of approximately 30 to 40 nuclear weapons and sufficient production of f ...

until a separate military-run Academy of National Defense Science was established to take on this role.

History

Preparations to found the Academy were begun in the spring of 1952,Alt URL
/ref> and the Academy was founded on 1 December 1952. When the Academy was founded, it had 10 full and 15 candidate members in nine research institutes and 43 smaller research laboratories. Its first president was Hong Myng-hi who, according to

Andrei Lankov Andrei Nikolaevich Lankov (russian: Андрей Николаевич Ланьков; born 26 July 1963) is a Russian scholar of Asia and a specialist in Korean studies and Director of Korea Risk Group, the parent company of NK News and NK Pro ...

, was not a skilled administrator and chosen for his political loyalty. Hong was followed by Paek Nam-un, who was more adept. The Academy initiated the

when in 1955 it sent representatives to a conference on peaceful uses of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

. By the late 1950s, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

was giving practical training in nuclear research to institutions affiliated with the North Korean Academy of Sciences. In 1957, the Soviets dispatched

I. M. Gramenitsky I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet. I or i may also refer to: Language * I (pronoun), the first-person singular subject pronoun in English * I (Cyrillic), a letter used in almost all ancient and modern Cyrillic alphabets * ı, dotless ...

to teach the Academy about thick-layered

emulsion An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible (unmixable or unblendable) owing to liquid-liquid phase separation. Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Althoug ...

in nuclear physics. In 1959, North Korea struck a deal with the

on setting up a nuclear research facility under the Academy near

Yongbyon Nyŏngbyŏn County (in standard Southern dialect: Yŏngbyŏn) is a county in North Pyŏngan province, North Korea. It borders the cities of Kaechŏn and Anju, and covers an area of 504 km². Description The city was heavily fortified du ...

. A parallel development in the late 1950s was the purging of intellectuals unfavorable to Kim Il-sung from the Academy in 1957. In the aftermath of the August Faction Incident that sought to oust Kim the previous year, meeting to uncover and punish "factionalists" were organized at the Academy from August to November 1957. One of those purged was Yi Chong-won, "one of the founding fathers of Korean Marxist historiography". In the 1970s, a number of State Academy of Sciences institutes were moved from the

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

to the city of Pyongsong, some outside of the capital. The headquarters of the Academy remained in Sosong District in central Pyongyang. There are now 17 such research institutions in Pyongsong, all of them part of the network of the Academy of Sciences. According to Lankov, the Academy does not exhibit "a hint of the intellectual, let alone political, independence" that academies in other countries, including the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

at times, have. On 11 January 1999,

North Korean leader The supreme leader () of North Korea is the ''de facto'' paramount leader of the Workers' Party of Korea, the state and the Korean People's Army. The title has not been written into the national constitution as a separate office, but it currently ...

Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

chose the Academy as his first location of on-the-spot guidance of the year, which he had declared the "year of sciences". According to Sung Chull Kim, " is unquestionable that this visit was more than a symbolic gesture" relating to Kim's strategy of prioritizing the information technology industry.

Organization

The Academy is the most important scientific institution in the country and is considerably large. The Academy reports directly to the

Cabinet of North Korea The Cabinet of North Korea (''Naegak'') is, according to the Constitution of North Korea, the administrative and executive body and a general state-management organ in the Government of North Korea. The Cabinet's principal newspaper is ''Minju C ...

. Under the Academy, there are various organizations and six publishing houses, including the Academy of Sciences Publishing House in the Central District of

. The Academy issues books and some 40 periodicals. '' Kwahakwon Tongbo'' (Korean for "Bulletins of the Academy of Sciences"), is the organ of its standing committee and is published six times a year. Affiliated with the Academy, there are institutions dealing with various fields including

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, law and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

, and

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

. A

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

research laboratory is under its direct control. Although there is a separate , there are

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

institutes attached to the Academy of Sciences. Various committees work on

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, the compilation of classics, the compilation of technical terms, and language reform. An

Academy of Koryo Medicine An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

was founded under the Academy of Sciences in 1962 to study traditional Korean medicine. The Academy Headquarters is based in the

Sosong District Sŏsŏng-guyŏk, or Sosong District, is one of the 18 guyŏk of Pyongyang, North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Ko ...

of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. While some facilities of the Academy are located in Pyongyang, much of its activities actually take place in Pyongsong. Most of the facilities are located in Pyongyang's

Unjong District Ŭnjŏng-guyŏk, or Ŭnjŏng District is one of the 18 guyŏk that constitute Pyongyang, North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of ...

, a district between the capital city's center and the city of Pyongsong. The North Korean government has plans to establish a special economic zone run by the Academy there. Pyongyang retains branches involved in the research of biology, construction and building materials, electronics and automation, and light industry. A branch exists in

Hamhung Hamhŭng (''Hamhŭng-si''; ) is North Korea's second-largest List of cities in North Korea, city, and the capital of South Hamgyong, South Hamgyŏng Province. It has an estimated population of 768,551. Located in the southern part of the South Ham ...

South Hamgyong Province South Hamgyong Province (, ''Hamgyŏngnamdo''; ) is a province of North Korea. The province was formed in 1896 from the southern half of the former Hamgyong Province, remained a province of Korea until 1945, then became a province of North Kore ...

. Between 1994 and 1998 it was briefly renamed the National Academy of Sciences. On 5 September 1999, the Academy merged with the State Commission for Science and Technology. Since the 1980s, the Academy has suffered from the lack of funds, and since the early 1990s, it and its personnel have experienced "a dramatic decline" in standing. Before that, positions in the Academy were much sought-after and could provide good wages, rations, and prestige. The Academy maintains websites, but they are only accessible through the

North Korean Intranet Kwangmyong () is a North Korean " walled garden" national intranet service opened in the early 2000s. The Kwangmyong intranet system stands in contrast to the global Internet in North Korea, which is available to fewer people in the country. The ...

. All science on the highest level was conducted by the single Academy of Sciences until 1981, when it was split into separate academies of the Academy of Social Sciences,

Academy of Agricultural Sciences An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

, Academy of Light Industry, and the original Academy of Sciences. In 1992 the minor academies were merged with the Academy of Sciences, only to be split off again in 1998. A

Second Academy of Natural Sciences The Academy of National Defense Science (), formerly Second Academy of Natural Sciences (), is a North Korean organization involved in the North Korean missile program, including the Hwasong-14. It is based in Pyongyang, and currently headed by Colo ...

, tasked with

military science Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing mil ...

, remains separate. The Academy has 40 research institutes and 200 smaller research centers. It has 50,000 employees. Its current president Jang Chol, who was preceded by

Pyon Yong-rip Pyon Yong-rip ( ko, 변영립; September 20, 1929 - November 15, 2016) was a politician of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). He served as secretary of the standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly and was a member ...

. The Academy is a member of the

International Council for Science The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...

since 1961. The Academy operates a Special Economic Zone near Unjong Park in the northern suburbs of

References

Works cited

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History

Organization

See also

References

Works cited

Further reading