A Canberra researcher who sought funding for sports drug testing research has lost a legal battle with the Australian Research Council and federal education minister over eligibility for a highly-prized fellowship.
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University of Canberra associate professor Ashraf Ghanem, who specialises in organic chemistry, has been locked in a court battle with the council and Education Minister Christopher Pyne over the government's Future Fellowships scheme.
Dr Ghanem had applied in 2013 for four years of funding for research titled "Integrated Microsystems for Chiral Doping Drug Testing in Sports", seeking $854,800 in total.
The application was not approved by the education minister, prompting the researcher to go to the Federal Court, seeking that he and the council either provide justification for the decision or put it aside and reassess his proposal.
The challenge was thrown out summarily, but Dr Ghanem appealed to a full bench of the court.
During that appeal, the full bench largely agreed with the decision to throw out the academic's challenge summarily.
But it did find that the Australian Research Council decision to even consider his application in the first place may have been at odds with the law.
That's because Dr Ghanem had already applied for two rounds of funding, in 2009 and 2010, and may have not been legally permitted to make the third bid for money in 2013.
Such a finding could have been important for the academic, as it may have rendered the 2013 application void, and allowed him to take another shot at funding in 2015.
It remitted that matter back to Justice Lindsay Foster for full consideration.
In a judgment handed down on Friday, Justice Foster noted that Dr Ghanem had never argued to him that his third application was void in the original hearing.
Dr Ghanem argued that the council should not have gone against the law and considered his 2013 funding application without first obtaining the approval of the minister.
He said that made a settlement reached with the council, which gave him special treatment in the 2013 funding round, void.
The academic also argued that it would be unfair to other applicants, if he was allowed to make a third bid for funding, while they were not.
But the council and the minister argued that even a proposal that was "technically ineligible" was not necessarily "void".
They argued that the council's chief executive was permitted to use his discretion and consider an application anyway.
Justice foster agreed in a judgment handed down on Friday, saying:
"In my judgment, his 2013 funding proposal was not void but was, at its highest, merely ineligible," he said.
Dr Ghanem's claims were dismissed with costs.
