The Solar Heat Integration NEtwork (SHINE) is a European research school in which 13 PhD students in solar thermal technologies are funded by the EU Marie-Curie program. It has five PhD course modules as well as workshops and seminars dedicated to PhD students both within the project as well as outside of it. The SHINE research activities focus on large solar heating systems and new applications: on district heating, industrial processes and new storage systems. The scope of this paper is on systems for district heating for which there are six PhD students, five at universities and one at a company. The initial work concentrated on literature studies and on setting up initial models and measurement setups to be used for validation purposes. The measurements have been used for validating simulation models, including those used for extending the capabilities of the planning tool Polysun to simulate smaller district heating systems. Some results of these studies are presented in the paper. The PhD students will complete their studies in 2017-18.