Nursing training emerged in the 1870s, spurred by doctors from the Red Cross and the state-owned hospitals of Paris. Léonie Chaptal played a fundamental role in developing the first curriculum, one based on the knowledge useful for the nurse to assist the doctor. However, French schools, influenced by Florence Nightingale, emphasized the nurse’s professional autonomy. Nursing training and profession developed in a context of ambiguity. This led to the development of “caring techniques” resembling medical techniques, or an autonomy claimed by the nurse’s “appropriate role” and the clinical approach. Today, the nursing profession finds itself at the heart of reforms: transfer of skills, testing of knowledge acquired from experience, and reform of the curriculum with a possible connection to the university. Having defined the criteria of the science, taking as an example the model of the sciences of education, this study of nursing research published in the ARSI from 1985 to 2005 shows that such research exists, and gives a general idea of the subjects investigated, which are often connected to the human sciences. This allows a first approach to the reference sciences, based on which the nursing sciences can establish and develop. (The label “nursing sciences” is only used in Quebec.)