  Recent years have seen spectacular progress in the development of innovative
acceleration methods that are not based on traditional RF accelerating
structures. These novel developments are at the interface of laser, plasma and
accelerator physics and may potentially lead to much more compact and
cost-effective accelerator facilities. While primarily focusing on the ability
to accelerate charged particles with much larger gradients than traditional RF
structures, these new techniques have yet to demonstrate comparable
performances to RF structures in terms of both beam parameters and
reproducibility. To guide the developments beyond the necessary basic R&D and
concept validations, a common understanding and definition of required
performance and beam parameters for an operational user facility is now needed.
These innovative user facilities can include "table-top" light sources, medical
accelerators, industrial accelerators or even high-energy colliders. This paper
will review the most promising developments in new acceleration methods and it
will present the status of on-going projects.
