Science in North Korea
I got an idea to look at the “openness” of science in North Korea. The fact that everything is bad and isolated is evident from many news articles. But is there any kind of openness? Yes, there is some kind of “international science” buy not a lot of it.
Data and Methods:
The data was retrieved from the Web of Science, where publications in international scientific journals are. Such a way to look at “internationalization”. Data — publications from all years in all areas.
The analysis of the networks of terms and co-authorship networks was made with the help of Vos Viewer.
The analysis of the networks of terms and co-authorship networks was made with the help of Vos Viewer.
What did I find?
Surprisingly, they are publications in INTERNATIONAL journals, but very few. For the entire period from 1991 to 2018, 750 publications were found. For comparison, in South Korea there are already more than a million publications. Among the North Korean universities, the Kim Il Sung University and the Kim Chaek University of Technology produce most of the research published in international journals. These are the best universities in Korea, but they also publish with top technical Chinese universities and from other countries. But most of the funding comes from China, although there are some authors working simultaneously in North Korean and Chinese organizations. I have no idea how it happened, but probably they are invited professors from China.
Themes are quite specific: basically very technical. Some areas did not develop immediately, for example, molecular studies look “young.” Most likely, these are those areas which could not develop without the cooperation and experience of colleagues. Scientists have to share their experience to show what they do and what they succeed in.
With the co-authorship on the researchers, I really wanted to find these researchers, but they are often not even represented on university websites. And everywhere are Kims :)
It is also interesting that corresponding authors are mostly not from North Korean but co-authorship countries.
However, not all publications are in English, but there is a funny tendency: in German, Russian, Bulgarian and Spanish there are publications exactly before the dissolution of the USSR, and in Chinese they appear after (the new communist friend?).
International cooperation still exists. Half of all publications were produced with the co-authorship with China. North Korean scholars are also often published with South Korea (can it still be a reunion?) and the United States. It should be considered that co-authorship does not mean direct cooperation. A publication can have a dozen authors and how they interacted with each other is a matter. I hope not by pigeon mail, but North Korean scientists are provided with Internet.
Some quotes have been translated from the articles, it is interesting to read about the state of science. I put the links, and I hope that it was interesting. And it is better to look at pictures independently.
