![\"Students](\"\/\/media.nature.com\/w800\/magazine-assets\/d41586-019-00990-5\/d41586-019-00990-5_16578498.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>Students from North Korea can\u2019t be trained in \u201cadvanced physics\u201d by foreign researchers.<\/span>Credit: AYAKA\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Researchers at North Korea\u2019s leading university have struck an unusual agreement with an Italian institute that will enable physicists from the isolated state to be trained in neuroscience.<\/p>\n The agreement is a rare opportunity for North Korean physicists. Sanctions normally prevent them from being trained by foreign scientists, because of their field\u2019s association with nuclear research. The arrangement will enable North Korean physicists to apply their quantitative abilities to another research field: computational neuroscience.<\/p>\n The deal, forged earlier this month and approved by the Italian foreign ministry, is between the physics department at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), a university in Trieste, Italy, which has previously hosted North Korean researchers on an ad hoc basis.<\/p>\n The deal formalizes the institutes\u2019 relationship and makes it easier for Kim Il-sung physicists to go to Italy to study under and collaborate with SISSA researchers. The arrangement also makes it easier for SISSA scientists to go to Kim Il-sung University, for example to teach. SISSA researchers expect two or three North Korean students to come to the institute each year.<\/p>\n Hak-Chol Pak, head of physics at the university, which publishes nearly half of the\u00a0isolated state\u2019s modest scientific output<\/a>, told\u00a0Nature<\/i>\u00a0that his university wanted to create a neuroscience institute and needed to develop expertise that isn\u2019t available in his country. The agreement was independent of politics, he says. \u201cWe are scientists, motivated only by science.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nuclear sanctions<\/strong><\/p>\n SISSA\u2019s director, physicist Stefano Ruffo, says he is happy to help students train in the university\u2019s cognitive-neuroscience department.<\/p>\n The roots of the agreement go back to 2016, when the United Nations declared international sanctions against North Korea aimed at\u00a0quelling the nation\u2019s nuclear programme<\/a>. The restrictions prevent other nations from training the Asian state\u2019s researchers in topics including \u201cadvanced physics\u201d, although the precise fields that fall under this term aren\u2019t defined.<\/p>\n Four North Korean students who had completed master\u2019s courses at the prestigious International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste were already studying for PhDs in cosmology at SISSA. Following an Italian newspaper report that North Korean physicists were studying at the ICTP, SISSA became concerned that their fields of study might have been covered by the sanctions.<\/p>\n To prevent the students having to return home defeated, Ruffo arranged for them to switch the topics of their PhDs. \u201cEmotionally it was a very tough moment for me,\u201d he says. \u201cThese were all exceptional students, and they were also human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n Two students switched to study neuroscience. One of them, Chol Jun Kang, joined the group of computational neuroscientist Alessandro Treves at SISSA. After receiving his PhD, Kang returned to Kim Il-sung University. The other two students changed to mathematics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mutual benefit<\/strong><\/p>\n Treves championed the idea of the exchange agreement. He helped to broker it when he visited Pyongyang last September to attend a rare international conference at the university, entitled \u2018Development of Science and People\u2019s Welfare\u2019, where he found himself one of only a few western scientists attending.<\/p>\n Treves says that the deal is valuable for science diplomacy, but also offers extra benefits for both parties. It gives young scientists from North Korea \u201copportunities to grow in a booming field of research\u201d, he says. They represent talent that \u201cselfishly, I would like to bring to SISSA before their country opens up and they are snatched by our competitors\u201d.<\/p>\n In a speech reported by North Korea\u2019s national press agency last April, leader Kim Jong-un said he\u00a0wished to boost the economy through science<\/a>\u00a0and education. Science, he said, should \u201cserve as groundwork for state building and an important index of national strength\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n (\uc6d0\ubb38: \uc5ec\uae30<\/a>\ub97c \ud074\ub9ad\ud558\uc138\uc694~)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"