The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) is one of the few state-socialist societies to have survived the Cold War. Located at one of the world’s geopolitical hotspots, North Korea is of great interest to academic institutions, governments, and NGOs.

The humanitarian tragedy of the famine in the 1990s and the emergence of the nuclear arms program in the 2000s have generated a strong demand in reliable, theoretically informed, and scientifically rigorous knowledge about the DPRK. Research output on the transformations in North Korea’s economy, politics, and society has grown in quantity and quality, but much still waits to be uncovered and understood.

The particular and comparatively interesting characteristics of the country have made it a fascinating – and sometimes puzzling – focus of research. Combined with strong interest from various stakeholders, the last two decades of research on North Korea have been defined by dynamic but sometimes spontaneous and uncoordinated growth.

Today, the field of North Korean Studies is characterized by a significant number of individual researchers using increasingly sophisticated methods and working with a growing degree of specialization.

Interest in research collaboration, joint applications for research projects and funding, the pursuit of advanced degrees, visiting fellowships and professorships, and other professional opportunities is growing among researchers of North Korea with backgrounds in Political Science, Economics, Korean Studies, and other disciplines. The time has come to consolidate the advances made in the study of North Korea and to institutionalize a field that exists de facto but lacks formal organization and coordination.