Accountant targeted return to research and study (8)
I believe the answer is:
academia
'study' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'accountant targeted return to research' is the wordplay.
'accountant' becomes 'ac'.
'targeted' becomes 'aimed' (I've seen this in another clue).
'return' says the letters should be written backwards.
'to' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'research' becomes 'a' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'aimed' reversed gives 'demia'.
'demia' after 'a' is 'ademia'.
'ac'+'ademia'='ACADEMIA'
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for academia that I've seen before include "World of university and learning" , "teaching community" , "Scholarly world" , "Teaching environment" , "university types" .)