diff --git a/matminer/__init__.py b/matminer/__init__.py
index 894cebca0..5733783c1 100644
--- a/matminer/__init__.py
+++ b/matminer/__init__.py
@@ -1 +1,7 @@
-__version__ = "0.7.8"
+from pkg_resources import DistributionNotFound, get_distribution
+
+try:
+    __version__ = get_distribution("matminer").version
+except DistributionNotFound:  # pragma: no cover
+    # package is not installed
+    pass
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index d5a7b6cf8..60d8d0a46 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -22,7 +22,8 @@
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     setup(
         name='matminer',
-        version='0.7.8',
+        use_scm_version=True,
+        setup_requires=["setuptools_scm"],
         description='matminer is a library that contains tools for data '
                     'mining in Materials Science',
         long_description=open(os.path.join(module_dir, 'README.md')).read(),