Many of the names in the QUBIS portfolio read like a who's who of Northern Ireland business, particularly in the ICT sector in whose creation it has played a significant role.

That success has also been recognised, as for the second year in a row, Queen's has emerged as the leading higher education institution across the UK in terms of the annual turnover of its spin-off commercial ventures.

"I'm just absolutley delighted," said QUBIS chief executive Panos Lioulias.

"I can't wait to get to £100m but times are changing and we're hoping that we can accelerate things even more. Everybody is pulling in the same direction and I'm hopeful and I believe that there's a lot to happen here."

QUBIS was founded in 1984 specifically to exploit academic research projects in the marketplace through what became known as spin-out businesses.

In all, 51 companies have been started through QUBIS and some of them are still among the 28-strong portfolio in which the university has an interest.

Names such as Kainos, Lagan Technologies, APT, Andor and Fusion Antibodies are now synonymous with international success.

More than 1,000 jobs have been created and better than 90 per cent of the combined products and services are exported around the world.

"QUBIS has always been pioneering actually and was the first to invest capital in its spin-out companies and not just IP (intellectual property]," said Mr Lioulias. "In fact, we were probably one of the first universities to spin-out companies in the UK and Ireland and so we have a long history.

"We also have a university full of geniuses," he laughed, adding that the entrepreneurial flair long associated with Northern Ireland continued to flourish.

"There was a blip and we know the reasons for that but now that things are back to normal, there's hope and we're trying to capitalise on that hope.

"People are very practical, they're very down to earth and if you have done well and been able to do something when things were a little bit more challenging well, now things are getting better, we should start doing much better."

The league tables reporting turnover are included in the most recent Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey published jointly by the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), but QUB has received other accolades, as Mr Lioulias stressed.

"These are the latest in a series of milestones which underlines the University's role as a major driving force in local economic prosperity and illustrates the quality and entrepreneurial spirit of Queen's researchers," he said.

"In September last year, the Sunday Times described Queen's as 'a casebook study of how a university can help drive the regeneration of the city and region in which it is located'.

"We are likely to see the creation of more companies emanating from the University's leading-edge research in the near future."