The Center for Applied Legal Research (CPJA) of FGV's São Paulo Law School (DIREITO GV) and FGV Projetos offered, in September, the research workshop Challenges and opportunities for the improvement of environmental licensing systems in Brazil: a legal and institutional analysis.The objectives of the research are to identify the main challenges faced with the licensing of works of significant environmental impact and propose strategies for their improvement, in order to promote not only their efficiency, but also its effectiveness as a management tool, aimed at the social and environmental protection of the contexts affected by various ventures.The event also had the merit of bringing together, in the same space, experts and representatives of different sectors and interest groups involved directly and indirectly with the environmental licensing, such as public managers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, consultants, academics and representatives of NGOs and social movements.The outcome of the event exceeded the expectations. The contributions of those who were present certainly promoted a qualitative leap in our study. It is important to stress that this and other events that will take place constitute a methodological instrument of our study which will provide a broad participation of key players during the whole process, something unprecedented in the environmental licensing bibliography, says Nelson Novaes Pedroso, who coordinates the project along with professor Flávia Scabin and FGV Projetos' environmental consultant Isadora Ruiz.The event took place at the auditorium of São Paulo Law School, in São Paulo.