diff --git a/common/Makefile.am b/common/Makefile.am
index 4fd8e361f31a1a45648808ab65c27b61883e2aad..9a0e6cbf42d9b672f7612bac07a77c21015dcde8 100644
--- a/common/Makefile.am
+++ b/common/Makefile.am
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ commoninclude_HEADERS = dlist.cc alignment.hh \
   collectivecommunication.hh mpihelper.hh singleton.hh \
   mpicollectivecommunication.hh geometrytype.hh utility.hh \
   bartonnackmanifcheck.hh binaryfunctions.hh lru.hh fassign.hh \
-  static_assert.hh
+  static_assert.hh version.hh
 
 if EXPRESSIONTEMPLATES
 commoninclude_HEADERS += exprtmpl.hh exprtmpl/scalar.inc exprtmpl/exprexpr.inc
diff --git a/common/version.hh b/common/version.hh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b6e57f0f902f527cfe2e6f626fe264cf4209d3d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/common/version.hh
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+// -*- tab-width: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil; c-basic-offset: 2 -*-
+// vi: set et ts=4 sw=2 sts=2:
+// versioning is not supported in this release
+// therefore DUNE_VERSION_HH will not be defined
+// but header can be included for consistency