Abstract: Personnel rostering represents a fascinating combinatorial optimisation problem due to its relevance in practice and its computational difficulty. The personnel rostering problem has yielded ample practice-oriented combinatorial optimisation approaches. Despite the vast amount of academic research results, it remains hard for novice developers to profit from general insights or re-usable models and algorithms. This `cold start’ issue can be partially explained by complicated regulations typical for personnel environments with 24/7 duties which are different in almost every organisation. The very same issue also persists due to the lack of a theoretical framework for nurse rostering. This talk will focus on the challenging interplay between important practical and theoretical nurse rostering contributions.