Educational Exchange with Scholars from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

This one-year planning project will explore educational exchange, collaboration and training between faculty of Columbia University and scholars from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) in the form of lectures, workshops and collaborative research coordinated at the Columbia Global Center in Beijing, China. Columbia’s main partner institution in the DPRK will be Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and will focus on the natural sciences, including biology, neuroscience and environmental science. The project will begin with an exploratory visit by four Columbia faculty members to Beijing and the DPRK in the fall of 2017 to meet with scholars, students and university administrators North Korea, with a follow-up visit in the spring of 2018. The goal of the project is to establish regular programs of exchange for North Korean scholars and students in Beijing and eventually at the Columbia campus in New York.