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“The path of science is far and rough,” said Im Song Jin, candidate academician, professor, PhD and section chief of the Physics Faculty of Kim Il Sung University. “Whenever I felt exhausted, the consciousness that I should live up to the honour of being a Korean scientist encouraged me to make more strenuous efforts.” 

Im is a scientist of established reputation at home and abroad.

He was inscribed as a scholar representing the DPRK in Marquis Who’s Who in 2018 and 2019. And he and his research team were awarded the February 16 Science and Technology Prize twice and won the first Natural Science Prize of the country. 

He pioneered a cutting-edge field with the pride of being a Korean and a scientist of the nation.

When he took part in a research programme in a European country over ten years ago, he was lost in deep thought.

He was worried if he, a researcher in his early thirties of Kim Il Sung University with just a three-year career, could possibly defend the honour of the country in the contest with the world as he had to compete with the world’s first-rate scholars in a world-renowned institute.

Moreover, the nonlinear optics which was exclusively studied at the institute was an ultra-modern science and an unknown field in the DPRK at that time.

It was literally an untrodden path, but Im was determined to show the mettle of a Korean with excellent research achievements.

Though he racked his brains and worked hard under the pressure of time, the prospects of his work got dimmer and his body and mind got exhausted, and so he felt like returning to the homeland.

However, he was convinced that he could never step back at the thought that he was not just an individual but a citizen of the DPRK who got the doctorate in his twenties and the world’s leading scholars who gathered at the institute would see the DPRK through him. 

“If no one had done that before, I, a Korean scientist, must do it without fail. I will show that nothing is impossible to the Korean people,” he thought and, with such courage, he made a breakthrough in his research.

When he achieved a series of cutting-edge research hits and published several study papers in international scientific journals in a little over a year, what filled his mind was not the delight of success but the pride of having finally defended the dignity of Korean people and the honour of a scientist.

“I have worked in joint research programmes with doctors from different countries for decades, but I’ve never seen such a scholar who achieved such a remarkable success in such a short time,” said a renowned European scholar on the day of Im’s return, adding that the young doctor of the DPRK was really talented and the level of science and education of the country was really high.

Later, Im boldly took on the research into nonlinear optical phenomena in nanostructures, a field of cutting-edge basic science in which a hot competition is going on among world-class universities, and made a surprising result.

Many scholars of the world came to know about his scientific achievements through international scientific journals.

“All my honour, pride and happiness was given by the motherland. Growing stronger with each passing day is my patriotic desire to repay the benevolence of the country with great achievements. My ambition is to demonstrate the honour of Kim Il Sung University and the dignity and self-respect of the country to the whole world on the road of exploring the unknown world of cutting-edge science by challenging the world, competing with and leading it,” said Im.