José Barba has left us very young in age and spirit after teaching us how one can be a great person, a great friend, and make extraordinarily relevant contributions to science and society from any context. It’s not even a month since the journal he started directing just three years ago had entered Thomson’s Web of Science. José transformed all the people and groups who were fortunate enough to know him, both in big things and small details. We will always remember, for example, how he appeared at an annual CREA conference with the TCR, which he called the Twitter Citation Reports, and which led many people to decide to join social networks. We will not forget any of the moments we shared, and he will continue to encourage us to keep working for that other possible world we dream of so much.