Educational level or equivalent for full membership:
Originally, 5ECA had a minimum education requirements of a doctorate. This translated to 60 points. The educational level can still be achieved with an accredited doctoral degree or equivalent (see below) as the education minimum is 60 points. This alone. is insufficient as a further 25 points on Creativity is required for Level 1 Candidate plus the intelligence requirements (1 in 5000 for Member; 1 in 1000 for Associate; Affilates do not have a formal intelligence requirement though their records should be such that they are expected to be of exceptional intelligence though they have not had formal testing, and they must have achieved even more significantly than Associates or Members in the areas of creativity and education. (See /tiers and/border and /apply)
We realized that the lack of a doctorate may exclude numerous extremely creative individuals without Doctorates.
There are five ways to achieve adequate educational points.
1. Formal degrees such as a doctorate. Also lower degrees can contribute points. e.g.. a Master’s degree or equivalent (e.g. Accountant, Attorney, Pharmacist and other degrees usually recognized as post-graduate in the United States and requiring in general at least six years training including any Bachelor’s degrees) scores 30 points including the associated Bachelor’s degree scores 10 points. A second Bachelor’s would add 10 points.
The difference can be made up by other education listings (see scoring for publications under the publications section).
2. Rare exceptions can also be made with honorary degrees (e.g. non-political honorary doctorates score the same as a Doctorate if this is from an accredited university. From the perspective of progression, a maximum of three honorary doctorates can count. This must be a non-political honorary doctorate, regarded as based on academic merit. It cannot occur in any individual when it is even marginally linked with any current or prior political office—almost every political like doctorate would therefore be excluded unless this can be demonstrated to have been based on real science: It is their obligation to motivate that to the ECAO ranking board. A political doctorate would be scored at one point only per doctorate.
3. Publications to presentations to citations (these are still in the Education category) which are scored equivalently with no discounting. These do not require here original research, but they must be peer reviewed.
4. Additional points can be scored based on accredited university or college academic appointment. Full professor, research professor, adjunct professor (current or in past for at least 5 years) scores 30 points; Associate professor, Associate research professor, Associate adjunct professor scores 10 points. Assistant professor or senior or principal lecturer scores 4 points. These are not additive (i.e. appointments at 2 universities count only one of these). However, Assistant, Associate and then Full Professor is additive. Please note that Clinical appointments e.g. Clinical medical Professor could only 3 points if Clinical Full Professor, 1 point if associate.
Appointments at non-accredited institutions, count one tenth to the nearest integer.
5. Additionally, insufficient education points can also be made up in any of numerous creative endeavors. These will be borrowed from the Creativity listings specifically for this purpose and one creativity point will be equivalent to 3/4 an education point. This allows those without the educational qualification to qualify based on creativity.
Creative achievement is not the immediate criterion of admission other than this exception and other than the requirement of at least 25 creativity points for Level 1 Membership but involves significantly progression.
Criteria may be reviewed by the board at any time and point scores altered. However, if the points have already been allocated they will not be subtracted if lowered (i.e. grandfathering of points), although they may increase if the board decides.
Qualifications must be from an accredited educational institution; Intention: not an Internet or other bought acquisition; single criterion cannot count twice
Any progression must officially be approved by the board. Advancements cannot be approved by oneself (if a board member).
Why is education relevant? And why a PhD? (an amplification of the above)
The object is to be able to provide some objective means to evaluate whether individuals can consult. Most consultants in any area have demonstrable achievement and the same relates to ECAO consultants. Part of achievement is education.
On www.5eca.com, just as the minimum education score of 60 may be achieved by a PhD.
But the education restriction is not simply via a doctorate. That is just one way to achieve it.
Those people who are creative or have published but do not have a doctorate, just need to have sufficiently demonstrated their creative achievement to have achieved a doctoral equivalent. There are many techniques, most commonly other professional degrees. Other methods relate to exchanging creativity points—individual, social and one-time achievements (*0.75), as well as publications (*1).
Education in ECAO is not overemphasized except as a baseline. The only time education really counts is in relation to admission. Virtually everything else on progress is creativity, until one reaches highest levels which clearly require educational achievement equivalence.