Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a particularly challenging rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease (RMD), not lastly based of its multi-domain nature combining disease manifestations from the joints, the entheses, the spine and the skin. While being in the shadow of rheumatoid arthritis for many years, scientific interest in PsA has gradually risen. This rapid development has been stimulated by the discovery of novel cytokine pathways that orchestrate inflammation in psoriatic skin and musculoskeletal disease. Despite these developments, current knowledge on the pathophysiology, clinical presentation and diagnosis & treatment of PsA is still limited. For instance, early disease is insufficiently characterized and not always recognized, interactions between the various organ manifestations of PsA are poorly defined and measuring disease activity and treatment responses still represents a major challenge. The Foundation for Research in Rheumatology FOREUM acknowledges these unmet needs and calls for innovative ideas and projects to increase our knowledge in PsA. FOREUM therefore announces a call on basic, translational and clinical research projects in PsA in order to instigate high-quality research in this severe and under-recognized disease in Europe.

In the PsA call, FOREUM seeks to support projects in the following areas:

• Studies that improve understanding of the pathophysiology of PsA and help to define the nature of its various disease manifestations
• Investigations that allow better characterization of the different disease stages (e.g. early disease) and subsets (e.g. oligoarticular disease) of PsA.
• Development of methods that help to define the disease course of PsA (e.g. residual disease activity, disease progression, damage, etc.)
• Concepts that improve the overall management of PsA patients (e.g. treat-to-target, comprehensive disease management, digital medicine) 
• Approaches that foster the development and/or implementation of feasible and useful methods for comprehensively monitoring disease activity and the functional state of PsA patients

The PsA call is designed to fund a range of research projects. An individual proposal may be funded with up to a maximal amount of 600.000 Euro for a 3-year funding period, provided the expenditure is appropriately justified. Collaborating partners should have a substantial part of the budget to appropriately conduct research. Projects will be subjected to an interim evaluation of progress and will have to offer a written final report. Submitted publications can be used as part of the report.

FOREUM primarily encourages collaboration across Europe and therefore requires multi-center project applications involving partners from at least three different countries. Any given institution shall be allowed to lead on only one application. However, that institution, or its staff may participate in other projects as collaborators. The call shall be open to participants from EULAR membership countries. Also, the Principal Investigator should come from a EULAR membership country. Centers from non- EULAR membership countries can participate as partners in exceptional cases (e.g. specific scientific expertise), but will not be eligible to receive research funding. Members of the FOREUM committees and EULAR Executive Committee are not allowed to submit or to participate in applications.

All applicants considering submission of a proposal are invited to send a short 'scientific letter of intent' by 3 January 2021 to FOREUM (email to info@foreum.org) accompanied by a 'lay (nonscientific language for the general public) summary letter of intent', for review by patients. The structure and required content of the letter of intent are described in the 'Letter of intent template' available from www.foreum.org. Letters of intent should not only include information on the study question and its novelty, but also the agreement of the participating centers to collaborate in data analyses or to provide aggregated or raw data in line with national regulations and their governing boards. Letters of intent will be assessed by members of the FOREUM Scientific Committee.

In case of interest, please contact with FSJD Research Foundation.