PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Johanna Mucke AU - Marta Alarcon-Riquelme AU - Jeanette Andersen AU - Martin Aringer AU - Stefano Bombardieri AU - Ralph Brinks AU - Ricard Cervera AU - Gamal Chehab AU - Alain Cornet AU - Nathalie Costedoat-Chalumeau AU - László Czirják AU - Andrea Doria AU - Rebecca Fischer-Betz AU - Richard A Furie AU - Mariele Gatto AU - Frédéric A Houssiau AU - Luis Ines AU - Matthew H Liang AU - Eric Morand AU - Marta Mosca AU - José María Pego-Reigosa AU - Iñigo Rúa-Figueroa AU - Guillermo Ruiz-Irastorza AU - Benjamin Terrier AU - Anne Voss AU - Matthias Schneider TI - What are the topics you care about making trials in lupus more effective? Results of an Open Space meeting of international lupus experts AID - 10.1136/lupus-2021-000506 DP - 2021 May 01 TA - Lupus Science & Medicine PG - e000506 VI - 8 IP - 1 4099 - http://lupus.bmj.com/content/8/1/e000506.short 4100 - http://lupus.bmj.com/content/8/1/e000506.full SO - Lupus Sci Med2021 May 01; 8 AB - Despite promising candidates for new therapeutic options in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), many clinical trials have failed in the past few years. The disappointing results have been at least partly be attributed to trial designs. With the aim of stimulating new developments in SLE trial design, an international open space meeting was held on occasion of the European Lupus Meeting 2018 in Duesseldorf, Germany about ‘What are the topics you care about for making trials in lupus more effective?’. The Open Space is a participant-driven technology, where the discussion topics and schedule are selected during the meeting by all participants and discussion rounds are led by the people attending encouraging active contributions. Eleven topics were selected for further discussion, of which 6 were voted to be more intensively discussed in two consecutive rounds. Major topics were the optimal handling of glucocorticoids in clinical trials, the improvement of outcome measures, reducing or controlling the placebo response and the identification of biomarkers and stratification parameters. Further, the importance of local and international networks was emphasised. By networking, collaborations are facilitated, patient recruitment is more efficient and treatment can be harmonised thus lead to more successful SLE trials. Further discussions are needed to substantiate the results and develop new trial designs.