Rising at university, inspired by outstanding work (4)
I believe the answer is:
opus
'work' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'rising at university inspired by outstanding' is the wordplay.
'rising' says the letters should be written in reverse (going up in a down clue).
'at university' becomes 'up'.
'inspired by' indicates putting letters inside.
'outstanding' becomes 'os' (accounting abbreviation).
'up' written backwards gives 'pu'.
'pu' going into 'os' is 'OPUS'.
(Other definitions for opus that I've seen before include "A Latin work" , "Work (of a composer?)" , "(Numbered) musical composition" , "Soup (anag.)" , "Artistic work" .)