"The Council of the European Union expressively welcomed the development of a first European roadmap for research infrastructures. The aim of this recently published roadmap was to identify vital new infrastructures that are crucial for the future European research area, in particular for capacity building. These multi-disciplinary projects require substantial investments, forty percent of which are directly linked to new infrastructures using particle accelerators. This drastically underlines the importance of this field to ensure long-term European competitiveness in the sciences. The future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), the X-ray Free Electron Laser (FEL) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will provide a new set of beams to a truly interdisciplinary community. In addition, smaller scale projects are emerging that aim for novel studies with merged molecular beams or experiments with cooled antiprotons at lowest energies to pave the way for fundamental studies in a number of different fields. The development of new particle accelerators with unprecedented beam characteristics drives the need for an intense R&D program in diagnostic techniques. The successful operation of these machines will only be possible with adequate beam instrumentation. The aim of the here-proposed Marie Curie Initial Training Network is to develop beyond-state-of-the-art diagnostic techniques for future accelerator facilities and to train students and young researchers within a European network between several major research centres, leading Universities, and partners from industry."