Introduction:
While universities have increasingly become tobacco-/smoke-free, to our knowledge, 100% policy adherence has yet to be achieved. Innovative approaches to encourage adherence and its assessment are needed. This paper describes actions undertaken, framed within a Living Lab (LL) approach, to implement smoke-free campus policies in an Irish city-centre university (approximately 22,000 students and staff). A specific objective was to assess adherence and compliance to a pilot smoke-free zones policy (June 2016-March 2018), and to a campus-wide smoke-free policy (March 2019-February 2020).

Material and Methods:
A participatory action research approach was undertaken. Data on directly observed smoking was collected by student ‘smoke-free ambassadors’. Adherence was defined as the average reduction in number of observed smokers per check from baseline (May 2016), calculated by dividing the total number of observed smokers by the number of checks of campus on any given day. Compliance was defined as the proportion of smokers who adhered when requested to comply with the policy and was calculated by analysis of the responses from smokers to smoke-free ambassadors’ requests.

Results:
2,909 smokers were observed from June 2016-February 2020. The average number of smokers per check decreased from 5.7 to 4.5 (79%). Overall compliance was 90% (2,610/2909). Additional activities within the LL framework included development of a broader health promotion programme; identification of a pattern of ‘social smoking’; and promoting increased awareness of the environmental harms of tobacco.

Conclusions:
Specific actions directed towards the goal of a smoke-free campus framed within the characteristics of a LL achieved fewer observed smokers. Successful smoke-free policy implementation requires ongoing data collection and evaluation. A LL approach is recommended.