This paper describes how a research team in social science approached the institutionally constructed problem of “indoor air quality.” Based on the analysis of a call for proposals, the scientists’ responses and their interactions with the funding institutions, the investigation explores how it was possible to develop a scientific approach of this type of public problem defined by administrations. Positioned between the scientific field and state expertise, the team must deconstruct the public problem and proceed to a critical analysis of the production and uses of the bureaucratic categories at its origin. The article thus underlines the importance of invisible and routinized influences in “oriented research” which, compared to direct pressures exerted on researchers, are less analyzed.