Mount Horribilis: examining productivity gaps in American research universities

Abstract The publish-or-perish adage and the winner-takes-all grant making practices are widely regarded as central organizing principles of academic careers. Its underlying assumption is that competitive evaluation systems incentivize scholars to maintain continuous research productivity over time. Yet little is known about the extent to which academic careers conform to this expectation. Using the concept of the Annus Horribilis —a career year with zero publications—we analyze fifteen years of longitudinal publication data (2006–2020) for 310,303 faculty members at 393 U.S. PhD-granting universities. Results show that between 32% and 47% of all career years contain no publications, depending on controls for career age and attrition. These non-publication years are widespread across institutions, disciplines, and ranks. Aggregated across careers and institutions, these patterns form what we term Mount Horribilis : a system-level accumulation of non-publication years that reflects substantial inefficiency within contemporary academic labor markets. Most notably, access to federal research funding is strongly associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing an Annus Horribilis . Those results suggest that this outcome is closely linked to a winner-takes-all funding architecture that concentrates resources among a minority of scholars while leaving most faculty without the material conditions necessary for sustained research output. Hence, improving productivity in higher education may depend less on intensifying competition than on expanding access to stable research funding. We conclude by outlining an alternative policy orientation— fund-and-flourish —that emphasizes broader and more inclusive support for academic research.