University best, excellent, rising — an ideal place (6)
I believe the answer is:
utopia
'an ideal place' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'university best excellent rising' is the wordplay.
'university' becomes 'u'.
'best' becomes 'top' ('top' can be similar in meaning to 'best').
'excellent' becomes 'ai'.
'rising' says the letters should be written backwards (going up in a down clue).
'ai' reversed gives 'ia'.
'u'+'top'+'ia'='UTOPIA'
(Other definitions for utopia that I've seen before include "Sir Thomas More's perfect country" , "More's ideal world" , "Imaginary place where everything is perfect" , "Place of perfect happiness" , "Thomas More's perfect society" .)