How do weather, pollution, access to food, sleep, and social connectedness affect mood? These are the types of questions The Mood Challenge for ResearchKit, a New Venture Fund program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and powered by Luminary Labs, seeks to answer. With up to $500,000 in awards, the Challenge calls on researchers, technologists, and data scientists to submit proposals for ResearchKit studies that will further our understanding of mood and how it relates to our daily lives, health, and well-being.

Mobile devices provide an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the relationship between mood and social and economic factors through the collection of active and passive data, for example: the song you’re listening to or how many hours of sleep you got last night. With ResearchKit, an open source software framework designed by Apple, doctors, scientists, and researchers can gather more frequent and accurate data from iPhone users around the world, transforming medical research along the way.

Interested in submitting a proposal? Visit www.moodchallenge.com to learn more.