Protest over university attempt to welcome Conservative (6)
I believe the answer is:
outcry
'protest' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'over university attempt to welcome conservative' is the wordplay.
'over' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'university' becomes 'ou'.
'attempt' becomes 'try' (I've seen this before).
'to welcome' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'inviting in').
'conservative' becomes 'c' (abbreviation commonly used in UK politics).
'try' enclosing 'c' is 'tcry'.
'ou' put next to 'tcry' is 'OUTCRY'.
(Other definitions for outcry that I've seen before include "Vociferous protest" , "Public show of anger" , "Furore, uproar" , "Public clamour" , "Great fuss" .)