Abstract-In this paper we discuss a selection of promising and interesting research areas in the design of protocols and systems for wireless industrial communications. We have selected topics that have either emerged as hot topics in the industrial communications community in the last few years (like wireless sensor networks), or which could be worthwhile research topics in the next few years (for example cooperative diversity techniques for error control, cognitive radio/opportunistic spectrum access for mitigation of external interferences).Index Terms-Cognitive radio, IEEE 802154, industrial-QoS, spatial and cooperative diversity, ultra-wideband, wireless sensor networks, ZigBee.