Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Rüdiger Frank

Dr. Ruediger FRANK is Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna, where he established an English language MA program on East Asian Economy and Society (EcoS, https://ecos.univie.ac.at ). He is also founder and director of the European Centre for North Korean Studies (ECNK, www.ecnk.eu), a platform for scholars and researchers to pursue multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and comparative research on North Korea.
He holds an MA in Korean Studies and International Relations, and a PhD in Economics. He has written on various topics related to North Korea, including economic history during the 1950s, the connections between ideology and economic reform after the 1990s famine, the transformation of state-socialism, tourism and trade, and the political economy of unification. His most recent books are: (2018) „Unterwegs in Nordkorea: Eine Gratwanderung“, and (2017) „Nordkorea: Innenansichten eines totalen Staates“ (revised edition).
Visiting positions included Columbia University New York, Korea University Seoul and Seoul National University.
He has advised governments and international organizations, has been working in Korea-related councils of the World Economic Forum since 2011, and was named one of the 50 most influential German economists by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2013.
He tweets as @RFrankVienna.