diff --git a/nutils/__init__.py b/nutils/__init__.py
index 10197e171..a05d7a641 100644
--- a/nutils/__init__.py
+++ b/nutils/__init__.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 assert sys.version_info >= (3, 5)
 assert LooseVersion(numpy.version.version) >= LooseVersion('1.16'), 'nutils requires numpy 1.16 or higher, got {}'.format(numpy.version.version)
 
-version = '8.0a0'
+__version__ = version = '8.0a0'
 version_name = None
 long_version = ('{} "{}"' if version_name else '{}').format(version, version_name)