Optica Publishing Group has confirmed that the Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot for the Journal of the Optical Society of America B (JOSA B) has met participation thresholds, enabling all content published in the journal’s 2026 volume to be made open access.
Under the S2O model, all articles published in the 2026 volume of JOSA B will be freely available worldwide in perpetuity without article processing charges (APCs) for authors.
The decision follows sufficient subscription renewals and commitments from institutional libraries to meet the participation threshold required for the S2O model. The successful implementation reflects continued engagement from the library community and demonstrates a collaborative pathway to open access that benefits authors, libraries, and readers.The Subscribe to Open (S2O) model enables libraries to support open access through existing subscription renewal processes. When enough institutions renew subscriptions, participating journals make content from that volume year freely accessible. Articles published under this model remain openly available permanently.
The approach provides a cost-neutral mechanism for libraries to support open access while maintaining subscription workflows already in place.
The successful pilot represents part of Optica Publishing Group’s broader efforts to explore sustainable open access publishing models that balance the needs of authors, libraries, and the wider scientific community. Several other scholarly publishers—including Annual Reviews, The Royal Society, SAGE, and BioOne—have also implemented the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model as part of wider initiatives to expand open access pathways. Click here to read the original press release.
