The article explores the professional culture of the research groups of an important federal institute of education, science and technology, located in the northeast of Brazil. It considers the meanings that researchers and other institutional representatives of these groups assign to knowledge, powers and autonomy in their social interactions in the process of scientific, technological production, and the possible creation of a community of practices in the institution mentioned above. Although there are many groups certified by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq -, the study indicates that only a few of them regularly develop scientific research that configures, an autonomous reflexive community, engaged in analysing their working conditions and academic life as researchers and knowledge producers.
Researchers; Technical and Scientific Production; Professional Culture.
