Unpublished research is often blamed on researchers’ anxiety and low confidence, but this assumption is rarely tested against actual publication outcomes. To examine process barriers, institutional support, and psychological strain among early-career researchers, and to test whether these factors predict published articles and unpublished projects. A cross-sectional survey of 291 researchers in Philippine higher education (86.3% undergraduates; 79.7% health and medical sciences) measured 22 phase-specific challenges, institutional and collegial support, publish-or-perish pressure, and six psychological factors. Analyses included correlations, Welch t-tests, and multiple regression. Most respondents (57.7%) had never published, and 61.9% had at least one stalled project. The highest-rated barriers were logistical and financial: unexpected disruptions, prolonged data collection, ethics approval, recruitment, and publication fees. Publication anxiety (M = 3.31/5) was the most prominent psychological factor. Psychological barriers and process challenges predicted each other (β = .50 and .44), and institutional support predicted lower strain (β = −.15). Undergraduates reported more publish-or-perish pressure than professionals (d = 0.64). However, no combination of challenges, support, or psychological factors predicted articles published (R² = .04, p = .443), and self-efficacy was unrelated to output (r = .03). Only years in research predicted unpublished projects (β = .18, p = .007). Publication-related strain is real and bound up with perceived difficulty, but it is largely decoupled from what researchers publish. The publication gap reflects two problems—researcher well-being and research productivity—that need separate interventions.
Keywords: Publication gap, publication anxiety, self-efficacy, publish-or-perish, institutional support, early-career researchers, Philippine higher education