diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 83c74dbe5..b9bca5cd0 100755
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -172,6 +172,11 @@ install(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include/podio/podioVersion.h
         DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}/podio )
 configure_file(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/python/__version__.py.in
                ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/python/podio/__version__.py)
+# Quality of life improvement to be able to use podio-dump --help
+# without having to import ROOT
+configure_file(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/python/__version__.py.in
+               ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/python/podio_version.py)
+
 
 #--- add license files ---------------------------------------------------------
 install(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/NOTICE
diff --git a/python/CMakeLists.txt b/python/CMakeLists.txt
index 2613f7d6a..273ecd4a4 100644
--- a/python/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/python/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -23,6 +23,12 @@ else()
     )
 endif()
 
+# Quality of life improvement to be able to use podio-dump --help
+# without having to import ROOT
+install(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/podio_version.py
+  DESTINATION ${podio_PYTHON_INSTALLDIR}
+)
+
 install(DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/podio_gen
   DESTINATION ${podio_PYTHON_INSTALLDIR}
   REGEX test_.*\\.py$ EXCLUDE  # Do not install test files
diff --git a/tools/podio-dump b/tools/podio-dump
index 757c3bd83..bd7b0f60a 100755
--- a/tools/podio-dump
+++ b/tools/podio-dump
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ import yaml
 
 from tabulate import tabulate
 
-from podio import __version__
+from podio_version import __version__
 
 
 def print_general_info(reader, filename):