This paper explores an uncommon topic of research in criminology: ‘intransparent’, deviant and criminal behaviours committed by scientific researchers and higher education teachers in the course of their occupation. Relevant literature will be extensively reviewed and the features of different deviant behaviours and social control in science will be presented, along with some data from previous studies. Not only will falsification and fabrication of data or plagiarism be mentioned, but some insight on disapproved authorial practices, conflicts of interest, intimate relationships with political and economic power, and other grey areas (e.g. jury tampering) will be provided. A project for a multilevel approach will be presented, highlighting the need to look at deviant individual behaviours (micro-level) in connection with the organisational environment of universities (meso-level) and the European normative framework governing it (macro-level). Finally, the paper will set out clues for research while stressing the need for a criminological approach.