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Institute of Physics Institute of Physics

Open Technology grant for Noushine Shahidzadeh

12 May 2026

UvA-IoP physicist Noushine Shahidzadeh is one of the co-applicants for the project “Effective chemical barriers against rising damp (CHEMBARIDA)” that has been awarded an Open Technology Programme Award by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The main applicant for the project is Barbara Lubelli, and the other co-applicant is Martin Tenpierik, both from TUDelft. The project aims to improve rising damp management to protect buildings and inhabtants.
Walls of houses damaged as a result of rising damp, a street in Faro, Portugal.
Walls of houses damaged as a result of rising damp – a street in Faro, Portugal. Image: Noushine Shahidzadeh.

Improving damp management

Rising damp increasingly threatens buildings and their inhabitants worldwide. Widely used chemical barriers to halt rising damp are often ineffective, despite millions of euros spent annually. This is because a multi-scale understanding of how these methods work is lacking, with field observations often contradicting laboratory findings. The team aims to revolutionize rising damp management in buildings by harnessing cutting-edge technologies and devising and validating new test protocols. For the first time, they will uncover the real-time spreading of chemical damp proofing products inside the microscale pores of building materials, while assessing their effectiveness at larger scale.

Open Technology Programme

With the Open Technology Programme grants, NWO is stimulating the development of new technologies that offer solutions to a wide range of social and scientific issues. The programme provides funding for application-oriented technical-scientific research that is free and unfettered and unencumbered by disciplinary boundaries. The programme provides a low-threshold way for companies and other organisations to join scientific research that should lead to societal and/or scientific impact. In the present funding round, six research projects were selected for funding.