The first North Korean defector to have earned a doctorate will open a North Korea research center in Seoul on Thursday.

The center will focus on regime change in the North, the direction of economic reform and open-door policies by Pyongyang, and plans for the social integration of the two Koreas.

Dr. An Chan-il predicts North Korea will see a new leader in the following two or three years. He says the center will conduct research in possible new directions the North could follow.

He added that, given his background, he hopes to bridge the gap between research and reality in North Korea. He said that previous research on the North had been conducted by South Koreans who had never spent time in North Korea or by foreign researchers who based their work on propaganda published by Pyongyang.

An defected in 1979 by crossing a barbed wire fence while serving in the North Korean military near the inter-Korean border. He later studied political science at a South Korean university and received his doctorate in the discipline in 1997.