Fellow produced a computer-aided design to train mice (8)
I believe the answer is:
academic
'fellow' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a computer-aided design to train mice' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'mice' is 'emic' which is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'cad' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'produced' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for academic that I've seen before include "having no bearing on the situation" , "Of theoretical interest, no practical application" , "Theoretical or scholarly - often not practical" , "Scholastic" , "A person studying" .)