The EU Horizon 2020 project McSAFER was launched in 2020 to advance the safety research of small modular reactors (SMR) via thermal-hydraulic experiments with related code validation and numerical coupled multi-physics and multi-scale simulations. This paper provides an overview of the thermal-hydraulic experiments and code validation within the project and presents the status of these activities highlighting some of the results already obtained. Experiments are performed at three European laboratories with test facilities dedicated for the investigation of SMR-relevant phenomena. Fundamental heat transfer experiments with boiling up to critical heat flux under forced convection for rod configurations and conditions representative of SMRs are performed with the COSMOS-H facility. Performance of the helical coil steam generator, core cross flow phenomena and the general behavior of an SMR operating with natural circulation are investigated with the MOTEL facility. Heat transfer phenomena are investigated in conditions relevant for SMRs also in forced to natural circulation transients with the HWAT facility. Selected thermal hydraulic system, subchannel and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes are validated with the experimental data.