Objective: to reflect on the contributions and limits of the Institutional Socio-clinic as a theoretical-methodological approach in nursing and health research.

Method: a reflection study developed by outlining the modalities to conduct the Institutional Socio-clinic approach: socioanalytical intervention, institutional analysis of professional practices, action-research and socioanalytical research. Result: the institutional socio-clinic is a continuity of the theoretical-methodological approach of Lourau’s socioanalysis, an institutional analysis current in the French line. It proposes eight guiding principles: order and demand analysis; the subjects’ participation in the device; work of the analyzers; analysis of the transformations that occur as the work advances; application of restitution modalities; work of primary and secondary implications; intention to produce knowledge and attention to the contexts; and institutional interferences. The contributions are related to the logic of transforming to know, collective knowledge production and knowledge and learning exchange between participants and researchers. The challenges are related to the rupture of the dominant logic in research and the inclusion of knowledge and power differences in the knowledge production.

Conclusion: the institutional socio-clinic can articulate the transformation of practices and the knowledge production. The reference framework offers important support in the field of knowledge production in nursing and health because it values the subjectivity of the stakeholders and the institutions that cross the practices and relationships throughout the research process.

DESCRIPTORS: Methodology. Public health. Nursing. Nursing research. Professional practice. Social theory.