From 1974 to 2017, taking the long road, generations of pulmonologists have contributed with dedication, imagination and hard work to the creation and strengthening of a scientific society, not only for science, but also promoting best clinical practice and bringing together the pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons and other physicians with a special interest in the respiratory area, facing the future. This scientific society was designated Sociedade Portuguesa de Patologia Respiratória (SPPR) and later, Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia or SPP as we know it now. In 1980, the society's official journal was created, known as the Arquivos da Sociedade Portuguesa de Patologia Respiratória, with the aim of bringing pneumologists closer together, facilitating peer communication, promoting knowledge and exchanging clinical experience, all of which are fundamental to the development and harmonization of knowledge. With the change of the designation of SPPR to SPP, the designation of the official journal also changed its name to the Revista Portuguesa de Pneumologia (RPP). The “global village” which today's world has become, largely as result of the developments in communication technologies, also influenced the RPP path, creating the need to “open up to the scientific world”. Progressively, PubMed indexing in 2003, the first publication on line Portuguese/English languages in 2005 and the first impact factor in 2011 were some of the most relevant steps on this pathway. From then on, the RPP, still the official journal of the SPP, has been open to the scientific community, being chosen by researchers from several countries to publish their works or where they can find references for their new projects or scientific papers. This has resulted in its rise in the ranking of respiratory journals and an impact factor that has not stopped growing (from 0.355 in 2011 to 1.560 in 2017). However, it has also resulted in an exponential increase in submitted articles (208 only 36 publishable) and a growing need for reviewers from the very different areas of Pulmonology; it is no longer feasible to recruit from national specialists only. The search for international collaborations has not been easy, which in fact is a cross-cutting experience for many other journals. Based on international experience, we verified that one of the reasons may be related to the scientific scope of the RPP; for some it is very confined to the national (pneumological) context. Thus, the RPP will adopt a new title, PULMONOLOGY, duly patented internationally, reaffirming its original proposal as the official journal of SPP and at the same time, opening the Portuguese Society of Pulmonology to the world so that it can take its place in the international scientific community.