Science

There are the State Academy of Sciences (a comprehensive body for leading scientific research institutes), the Academy of Social Sciences, the State Science and Technology Committee (a body for giving scientific and technological administrative guidance) and their subordinate units of various sectors in the DPRK.

Scientific research institutes are provided with every convenience ranging from updated research rooms to laboratories, test-rooms and intermediary pilot plants.

Large contingents of millions of intellectuals produced at the State’s huge expenditure are ushering in a heyday of national prosperity and mapping out the plan for tomorrow’s sci-tech power.
Science in the country plays the role of an engine that opens the way for economic development and leads the economy in building the country into an economic giant.

Today the country is making breakthroughs in such core, basic technologies as IT, nanotechnology and bioengineering and in other fields of modern science and technology, like new materials, new energy, outer space and atomic energy.

It puts its major efforts into resolving in a scientific and technological way the problems of key importance in building an economic giant, including those arising in producing energy, iron, steel, chemical goods and grain, as well as developing technologies of competitive edge in the field of cutting-edge science and technology.

The latest achievements of science and technology have been introduced to several fields of the national economy, especially in building UHP electric arc furnaces in the Chollima Steel Complex and in building Tanchon Port.

A nanophotocatalyst production process of the cutting-edge level was established, and innovations and new technological achievements including the establishment of a multi-element simultaneous analyzing process were made.

Development of up-to-the-minute technical products such as 9-axis machining centre, parent machine for processing the main body of machine tools and AC locomotive equipped with asynchronous vehicular motor and the great achievements in bioengineering, resulting from close combination of science and technology with production processes, are forcefully propelling the building of an economic giant.

Scientific research is conducted widely, not only in studies but at production sites; involved here are also such non-experts as workers, farmers, office employees, university students and even housewives. This is firmly guaranteed by the universal 12-year compulsory education system, the study-while-you­work system, the Sci-Tech Complex and the e-libraries and sci-tech learning spaces set up in various parts of the country.

Exchanges in science and technology with other countries are encouraged positively.

Recently modern apartment blocks and welfare service facilities have been set up in a large number, typical of them being Ryomyong Street, Mirae Scientists Street, Unha Scientists Street, Wisong Scientists Residential District and Yonphung Scientists Holiday Camp.

Thanks to the policy of attaching importance to science and technology as a strategic line in building a thriving country, science and technology are making rapid progress in the country.

Success in Nuclear Fusion

In Juche 99 (2010), Korean scientists succeeded in nuclear fusion reaction.
The nuclear fusion technology, so-called “artificial sun” technology, has drawn great interest from the global scientific circles as it ensures production of an ideal, inexhaustible and safe energy with little damage to the environment.

The scientists of the country solved a number of scientific and technological problems by their own efforts, and at last succeeded in nuclear fusion reaction.

After designing and manufacturing unique thermonuclear device and conducting a basic research, they could develop thermonuclear technology by their own efforts.

This success was a huge step forward towards the development of new energy and it opened up a new phase of advancement in the cutting­edge science and technology of the country.

Artificial Earth Satellite 

By developing space science and technology in a short span of time, the DPRK succeeded in launching the first test sat­ellite Kwangmyongsong 1 on August 31, Juche 87 (1998), the test commu­nications satellite Kwang­myongsong 2 on April 5, Juche 98 (2009) and the first application satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 on December 12, Juche 101 (2012).

True to the instructions of Kim Jong II, scientists and technicians success­fully inserted the satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 into orbit by means of carrier rocket Unha 3.

On February 7, Juche 105 (2016), in the lead-up to the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the space scientists successfully inserted the earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong 4 into orbit.

This was a brilliant fruition of the policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea on attaching importance to science and technology and constituted an important occasion in developing the country’s science and technology and its economy by exercising its independent right to peaceful use of outer space.