diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 0a483421..115c408a 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: bbotk
 Title: Black-Box Optimization Toolkit
-Version: 1.5.0
+Version: 1.5.0.9000
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Marc", "Becker", , "marcbecker@posteo.de", role = c("cre", "aut"),
            comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-8115-0400")),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 9405467a..f31acbb2 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+# bbotk (development version)
+
 # bbotk 1.5.0
 
 * compatibility: irace 4.1.0