Sharing research data in ways that make it easy to find, access, combine, and use (FAIR) has huge potential—but making it happen is easier said than done. In this talk, I will take you through the real-world challenges and opportunities of FAIR data sharing. Based on research in fields like epidemiology and astrophysics, I will show how researchers’ decisions to share or reuse data depend on many things—like the culture in their field, concerns about privacy, and whether they get credit for sharing. We will also look at how new tools, like smart data management plans and AI, can help make data sharing easier and more useful. This presentation is about moving beyond policies and into practice: what really helps researchers share their data, and how can research organizations, funding institutions, and policymakers support that? Whether you are a researcher, policymaker, or just curious about the future of open science, this talk will give you a picture of where we are now, and what it will take to make FAIR data sharing the norm.