If you are reading this editorial is likely that you are one of the supporters of Journal of Optometry from the very beginning of this project back in 2008. Since them, nearly 440 documents have been published in over 50 Issues and 13 volumes including Original Articles (66%), Review Articles (10%), Editorials (12%) Scientific Letters or Case Reports (9%), Letters to Editor (2.5%) and Erratum (0.5%). In the same period, nearly 1600 (over 300 in 2020) have been processed by the editorial team and with the invaluable help of thousands of reviewers.

Journal of Optometry was born as an Open Access project and the Spanish General Council of Optometry covered the edition costs of the Journal. As the journal increased its international visibility and was indexed by some of the most respected scientific rankings, the number of submissions raised significantly by a 2.5-fold in less than 5 years.1–3 This fact suggests a promising and scientifically sustainable future for the Journal through high quality contents. However, it also creates an increasing pressure due to the reduced number of manuscripts that can be accepted and concerns to ensure that authors submitting their manuscripts can see them timely published.

All put in the equation, considering the increased impact of the journal, the impressive increase in number and quality of submissions and the increased article processing chargers, it is required a strategic move for the Journal of Optometry to be able to bring to light of the world audience more manuscripts than those the finantial sustainability of the current model is able to cope with. Committed with the promotion of the Open Access scientific literacy and the dissemination of the scientific information produced by and for vision scientists and clinicians, the Spanish General Council of Optometry will continue endorsing the project by supporting 50% of the Article Publishing charge (APC), while the remaining 50% will be covered by the authors. Other changes that will be applied to the Journal from 2021 will be the 100% online publication, thus suppressing the paper edition. Also, the elimination of the abstract in Spanish implies that the journal will be published entirely in the English language.

We are confident that this change will continue to keep Journal of Optometry as an attractive dissemination point for state of the art research and clinical results from authors around the world while at the same time we pave the Journal's track towards a bright and sustainable future.