The President of the Humboldt Foundation Professor Helmut Schwarz, on the occasion of the award giving ceremony held on 20 June 2012 in Berlin Germany mentioned Dr. Tariq Rahman as the first person from Pakistan to have received the research award. Though several Pakistanis have received the Humboldt fellowships which are applied for by the scholar and for which one sends a research proposal and then spends time in Germany doing that research however the award given to Dr. Tariq Rahman is one, for which one does not apply for and it has been announced for the first time to Pakistan in recognition of Dr. Rahman's research which is a great honour to our country. An extract from Dr. Schwarz's speech given below shows what a matter of great pride for Pakistan, the School of Education and BNU this award is

"This evening, it is our great pleasure to honour 32 award winners from 12 countries. 10 of them work in the humanities and social sciences, 19 in the natural sciences and medicine, and 3 in the emerging sciences. They conduct their research at 28 different research institutions in Germany. I am delighted to welcome our first research award winner from Pakistan, Professor Tariq Rahman…."