Asian holds up papers by university leaders of advisory service (5)
I believe the answer is:
saudi
'asian' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'holds up papers by university leaders of advisory service' is the wordplay.
'holds up' is a reversal indicator (I've seen 'held up' mean this).
'papers' becomes 'id' (identification papers).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'university' becomes 'u'.
'leaders of' suggests taking the first letters.
The first letters of 'advisory service' is 'as'.
'id'+'u'+'as'='iduas'
'iduas' backwards is 'SAUDI'.
(Other definitions for saudi that I've seen before include "Eg, native of Riyadh" , "M East citizen" , "Native of kingdom" , "from the Middle East" , "Middle-Easterner" .)