N. Korea ranks middle in world academic standard: study

/Yonhap

By Lee Jin-a

North Korea’s academic standard is middle rank in the world, according to a U.S.-based media outlet Thursday.

Voice of America said an international database analyzed studies published from 1994 to last year in 239 countries and designated North Korea 126th for publishing thesis papers. Among the “H-index,” which represents the quality of the research, the communist state was 105th.

Scopus is the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, managed by Dutch publisher Elsevier. More than 20,000 journals are recorded in the database.

According to the Scopus research, North Korea showed its strength in fields such as engineering (85th), computers (86th) and material science (88th). The state ranked 63rd in space engineering.

Meanwhile, South Korea was 12th in the world for publishing studies. In space engineering, the country was 49 places ahead of North Korea.

Scopus said the U.S. has topped its chart for the past 20 years.