This white paper, published by Springer Nature, proposes and discusses key ways to improve on research data sharing practices. The related infographic is available in figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7937195.v1The report builds on previous white papers on research data sharing, summarising the findings and data from large-scale surveys into researcher views and behaviours. The findings are summarised as five essential factors on what needs to be done to make good research data practice common and widespread. This includes an analysis of the currently data policy landscape and impacts, researcher motivations for sharing data and practical solutions to making data more FAIR.Specifically, this follows up with research conducted in China and Japan to complement the existing outputs based in North America and Europe. The report also summarises evidence from external sources on the impact of, and need for, data sharing.All reports and summary data are openly available in the figshare repository from the links below. Data were collected in online surveys run between 2017-2019 and are stored in Excel spreadsheet format. Individual surveys vary slightly in methodology, with respondents self-selecting to an extent. See individual datasets for more detail. Additional data supporting the findings of this report (for example the 2016 Nature online survey on reproducibility) are linked under References.Practical Challenges for Researchers in Data Sharing White paper: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5975011Full survey dataset: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5971387.v2Infographic: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5996786.v4The State of Open Data Report 2018 White paper: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7195058.v2Full survey dataset: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7234985.v1Interactive data: https://knowledge.figshare.com/articles/item/state-of-open-data-2018Challenges and Opportunities for Data Sharing in China White paper: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7718441.v1Full survey dataset: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7321604.v1Infographic: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7782761Research Data Sharing in Japan White paper: forthcoming, 2019 Full survey dataset: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6328952.v1 Infographic: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6609056.v1