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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/16259
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A paragraph or chapter that outlines "possible future research directions" is a common part of many theses, placed near the conclusion.

Do not treat it as "this is missing." Your thesis is complete over the section it analyses. Your analysis is not "lacking". Instead, it opens the doors to more research that can be based upon it - things that would be impossible or way more difficult to research without your thesis. Just alongside with "possible practical applications" which are food for thought for engineers, you provide "possible theoretical/research applications" - how your thesis can be useful for other scientists in expanding understanding of the wider domain. Just note to use it to provide suggestions that do make use of what you've provided, build upon it.

There is a separate section, "domain analysis", which places your research in the greater image. You usually place it somewhere in the introduction, and it describes how your thesis fits and expands upon existing knowledge - what it builds upon, and what are some "neighbour fields" that are closely related. If some of these "neighbour fields" are lacking in research, you may mention so, but you should make sure to delineate them as such - they are not a part of your thesis, they are just other subjects, and the fact they require more research [by someone else] is just a circumstance worth mentioning.

Of course if some of the "future research directions" would need to build upon both your thesis and these "neighbour fields" which are still lacking, you can still mention them as prerequisites, e.g.

> Utilizing the proposed architecture enables research of application of the robot skin in sensing and physical (thermal, chemical, structural) analysis of objects with which the robot comes in contact, pending research and development of mechanically flexible sensors of these properties, embeddable in the robotic skin.

Original score: 2