Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman has 843 publications in organic chemistry including 663 research publications, 18 patents, 103 books and 59 chapters in books.

Prof. Rahman was elected as Fellow of Royal Society (London) (2006). He won the prestigious UNESCO Science Prize (1999). He has been conferred honorary doctorate degrees by Cambridge University (1987), Coventry University (2007), Bradford University (2010), Asian Institute of Technology (2010) and many other universities. He was elected Honorary Life Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge University, UK (2007).

Dr Atta-ur-Rahman was the Federal Minister for Science and Technology (2000-2002), Federal Minister of Education (2002) and Chairman (Federal Minister) of the Higher Education Commission (2002-2008). Successive governments of Pakistan have conferred four civil awards: Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (1983), Sitara-i-Imtiaz (1991), Hilal-i-Imtiaz (1998), and the highest national civil award Nishan-i-Imtiaz (2002). Dr Atta-ur-Rahman was conferred the TWAS (Italy) Prize for Institution Building (2009) and the Austrian government conferred its high civil award (Grosse Goldene Ehrenzeischen am Bande” (2007) for bringing about revolutionary changes in higher education in Pakistan.

Dr Atta-ur-Rahman is the Coordinator General of COMSTECH, (OIC Ministerial Committee comprising 57 OIC Ministers of Science & Technology). He is President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.