Could you tell us about your professional background?
I trained in rheumatology in Madrid and now work in Barcelona. I split my time between clinics and research as a rheumatologist at Bellvitge University Hospital and as an associate professor at the University of Barcelona. My main interests are axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) and digital health, collaborating in projects that aim to bring technology closer to daily practice, from natural language processing of health records to electronic patient-reported outcomes. I have been fortunate to learn from mentors and colleagues across Europe, and those connections continue to shape how I work and how I think about collaboration.
How did you start at EMEUNET?
After becoming a member, I started my active collaboration at EMEUNET in 2017 as Spain’s Country Liaison. I had more enthusiasm than certainty… but soon learned that growth here is collective and supported by peers. From day one, colleagues showed me that motivation counts as much as a CV when contributing to initiatives. Presenting EMEUNET at national meetings brought me closer to the activities and to the people who make them happen. Since then, I have seen late-evening ideas become sessions at the EULAR Congress, casual conversations turn into international collaborations, and bridges built with other committees to organise multidisciplinary meetings. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
As Committee Chair, what is your vision of EMEUNET?
My vision is for EMEUNET to remain a supportive, inclusive, and effective community; an open door with clear processes where everyone can learn and contribute.
Education should be a pillar, with practical and efficient initiatives, such as targeted webinars, peer-review mentoring, and concise but informative newsletters. We are entering a period of rapid change as artificial intelligence transforms clinics and research. This will also shape EMEUNET’s work, providing the opportunity to lead the transition by combining curiosity and motivation with rigor. Research will be more and more multicentric, so enabling projects across countries is a key point for providing value. EMEUNET can be a platform where ideas become collaborative studies with impact. This will not happen in isolation: we need to work closely with other EULAR Communities and build international partnerships, because the challenges ahead are larger than any single team.
Why should young rheumatologists and researchers join the EMEUNET community?
Progress in our field is built on small, steady steps. Here you meet peers who energise you, find mentors who give practical feedback, and learn skills that turn effort into growth. You also get real chances to contribute and improve, such as writing, teaching, organising, and leading, so that what you learn is immediately put to work.
This mindset has a name: kaizen. This is a discipline of constant, incremental improvement; small steps, repeated with intention, guided by feedback. EMEUNET fits this mindset. It is how we try to collaborate in our initiatives: plan, test, learn, adjust. In practice, a plan for Country Liaisons becomes a complete toolkit, a draft evolves into a process-improving manuscript, a five-minute episode expands into a podcast series, and a first collaboration at EULAR becomes RheumaVision; all of these initiatives become projects with real impact in the rheumatology community.
If you are a young rheumatologist or researcher new to EMEUNET, start by joining the mailing list on our website, follow us on all social media platforms to stay up to date with calls and events, and share your ideas. When you are ready, apply to the Subcommittee. You will learn by doing, work with motivated colleagues, and help turn projects into practice. Sometimes one well-timed idea, acted on and refined, is enough to start something meaningful. That is how EMEUNET began 15 years ago.
Diego Benavent, EMEUNET chair