How candidates are defined

A topic is listed as a climbing-leadership candidate when:

  • Arkansas is on the radar — an Arkansas institution holds ar_top100_rank between 5 and 50 globally for the topic.
  • Headroom remains — top5_share ≤ 30% (no small group of institutions has fully consolidated the top tier).
  • Field is stable or growing — cagr_2018_latest ≥ 0% (we don’t list candidates in fields that are shrinking globally).

Candidates are ranked by climbing_score = (50 − ar_top100_rank) × (1 − top5_share) × (1 + cagr). The score rewards higher current global rank, fragmented leadership, and forward field growth.

This is a descriptive surface. It identifies areas where Arkansas has measurable structural position to build from — nothing more. Decisions about where to put effort belong to institutional leadership.

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# Topic AR rank CAGR Top-5 share Confidence Score