An adequate SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance strategy has proven to be essential for countries to obtain a thorough understanding of the variants and lineages being imported and successfully established within their borders. During 2020, genomic surveillance in Belgium was not structurally implemented but performed by individual research laboratories that had to acquire the necessary funds themselves to perform this important task. At the start of 2021, a nationwide genomic surveillance consortium was established in Belgium to markedly increase the country's genomic sequencing efforts (both in terms of intensity and representativeness), to perform quality control among participating laboratories, and to enable coordination and collaboration of research projects and publications. We here discuss the genomic surveillance efforts in Belgium before and after the establishment of its genomic sequencing consortium, provide an overview of the specifics of the consortium, and explore more details regarding the scientific studies that have been published as a result of the increased number of Belgian SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have become available. ; S.D. acknowledges support from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.- FNRS, Belgium; grant F.4515.22), and from the European Union Horizon 2020 project MOOD (grant agreement 874850). S.L.H. and G.B. acknowledge support from the Research Foundation—Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen, G0E1420N). B.I.P. and G.B. acknowledge support from the Internal Funds KU Leuven (Grant C14/18/094). S.D. and G.B. acknowledge support from the Research Foundation—Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen, G098321N). K.K.A. acknowledges support from the Research Foundation—Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen, G0G4220N). N.V. is supported by the Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Baekeland Mandate HBC.2020.2889). This work and the sequencing capacity were supported in part by a COVID19 research grant ...