We at the Department of International Business and Asian Studies at the Griffith Business School are dismayed to learn that one of Malaysia's leading social scientists, Professor Edmund Terence Gomez, has been denied leave from the Universiti Malaya in order that he might take up a temporary posting with the United Nations in Geneva.

He has thus found it necessary to resign, an action that surely diminishes his institution. As a highly regarded researcher and author, Gomez has helped to give the UM its international standing.

And as a tireless organiser of edited collections and conferences, he has engaged his many colleagues across the region, while encouraging a next generation of Malaysian scholars.

We remain confident, though, that university officials, while understandably proud, remain eminently pragmatic - leading us to hope that an outcome satisfactory to both sides can still be found.

The authors are associate professors at Griffith University, Australia.