This COSPAR Colloquium Series deals with the main achievements that were accomplished through the collaborative efforts among ISTP participants; the plasma dynamics of magnetic reconnection in a thin plasma sheet, the action of the solar wind on the plasma population in the plasma sheet and around the magnetotail boundary layer, the relationship between the substrom expansion region and the X-line formation in the magnetotail, and the temporal evolution of the dipolarization from from the near-Earth to the distant tail.