© 2020, Società Italiana di Fisica (SIF) and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.We give an account of the main achievements of the scientific career of Andrea Vitturi so far, that have recently been discussed during the workshop “Theoretical Nuclear Physics in Padova” on the occasion of his retirement from full professor at the University of Padova. He has oftentimes been the driving force behind numerous contributions to nuclear structure and nuclear reactions that are here reviewed: giant resonances, pairing correlations, collective modes, algebraic models, inelastic excitations, electromagnetic response, break-up and transfer reactions, coupled-channel formalism, clustering, sub-barrier fusion processes, etc. Among these topics several inspirational works and ideas can be found that we would like to highlight.