Independent criticised containing nothing special (8)
I believe the answer is:
isolated
'special' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'independent criticised containing nothing' is the wordplay.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'criticised' becomes 'slated' (I've seen this before).
'containing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'nothing' becomes 'o' (looks like zero - 0).
'slated' enclosing 'o' is 'solated'.
'i'+'solated'='ISOLATED'
(Other definitions for isolated that I've seen before include "kept separate" , "Quarantined, alone" , "Set apart from others" , "individual" , "Set apart, quarantined" .)