Dear colleagues and friends,


Unprecedented times… required unprecedented measures. Due to the worldwide pandemic, we were not be able to invite you all to the Twelfth International Congress on Spondyloarthritides in 2020, but will try to make it up now in September 2021.

The Belgian COVID-19 measures and internal rules of the University of Gent, allow us to welcome only a small number of participants to Gent. We therefore were forced to restrict the live congress to the Organising and Scientific Committees, the speakers and the sponsors, without whose support the organisation of this congress would not be possible.


However, we are pleased to announce that the congress will be livestreamed on an online platform where you and many international colleagues can tune in and view the talks in real-time or at a convenient time for a month after the congress dates. Furthermore, the platform will offer ample opportunity for networking.

The congress has grown over the years to become the premier international event in the field of the Spondylarthritides. The success of the Gent congress has been underpinned by the quality of the scientific contributions including the state-of-the-art lectures given by carefully chosen guest speakers and selected abstract presenters. To facilitate the organisation of a live event, the local and scientific organizers focused on excellent speakers from continental Western Europe. We have not forgotten our far-away friends and colleagues and hope to see you back in 2022 at the next full edition.

The programme for the 2021 congress will still offer a wide range of topics including basic and clinical translational research, genetics, imaging and therapeutics.

In 2018, the ‘Gent Oration’ was introduced, aimed to honor a scientist or clinician with an established trajectory in the field which we expect with time, to become one of the main highlights of the congress. It is our great pleasure to invite Professor Maxime Dougados as the inaugural Gent orator in this second edition.

We hope to welcome you online to the Twelfth International Congress on Spondyloarthritides and remain,

Yours sincerely,

Rik Lories, President
Dirk Elewaut and Filip Van den Bosch, Local Organisers