---
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix acf: <https://acf-framework.dev/ns/> .

<#ACF-6> a acf:CertificationLevel ;
    acf:id "ACF-6" ;
    acf:label "PhD / Board Certified" ;
    acf:scoreMin 90.0 ;
    acf:scoreMax 100.0 ;
    acf:humanEquivalent "PhD / board-certified expert" ;
    acf:description "Creates original work, advances the field, and demonstrates meta-cognitive mastery at the highest level." .
---

# ACF-6: PhD / Board Certified

**Score Range:** 90 -- 100

**Human Equivalent:** PhD / board-certified expert

## What This Level Means

An AI system certified at ACF-6 demonstrates **field-advancing mastery** of a domain. It can:

- **Create** original work that extends the boundaries of the domain
- **Advance** the field through novel insights, frameworks, or methodologies
- **Demonstrate** meta-cognitive mastery, monitoring and improving its own reasoning processes
- **Define** new problem classes and research directions

## Cognitive Profile

At ACF-6, the system operates at the **Create** level of Bloom's taxonomy with full meta-cognitive awareness. It can generate genuinely novel contributions, identify gaps in the current state of knowledge, and propose research programs to fill them. Its self-monitoring is sophisticated enough to produce calibrated uncertainty estimates and detect its own reasoning errors.

## Typical Capabilities

- Generate original research hypotheses grounded in existing literature
- Design experiments or investigations to test novel claims
- Produce work that would be accepted by peer review in the domain
- Identify unstated assumptions in the field's foundational frameworks
- Synthesize across disciplines to create novel interdisciplinary frameworks
- Mentor and develop other systems or humans in the domain
- Monitor and improve its own reasoning processes (metacognition)
- Recognize paradigm boundaries and reason about paradigm shifts

## Limitations

- ACF-6 represents the upper bound of the framework; no system is assumed to be infallible
- Domain-specific certification does not imply cross-domain expertise
- Creative output quality may vary across sub-specializations
- Metacognitive monitoring, while strong, is subject to systematic biases

## When to Use ACF-6 Certification

ACF-6 is appropriate for systems that serve as **research partners**, **thought leaders**, or **board-certified experts** in domains where the system is expected to produce original contributions and operate at the frontier of human knowledge. This is the threshold for autonomous research and field advancement.
