Q: Can I add or remove an author when resubmitting a manuscript after the peer review changes?

You haven’t provided more details. So, it would be difficult to advise you on the specifics of your situation. However, generally speaking, it is permissible to add or remove an author if there’s a genuine reason for this. It may be that the peer review asked for a major revision, due to which you needed to make extensive changes with the help of another author. In the same situation, perhaps after the peer review, a section or angle to which a previous author had contributed was no longer deemed necessary. Or it may simply mean that the earlier author was no longer available to make the changes.

In such cases, as you can understand, you need to discuss the matter with all authors involved before proceeding with the changes. If needed, for those whose authorship you need to remove, you could still acknowledge their contribution in some way through the Acknowledgments section. This is not so much to ‘keep them happy,’ but to accurately recognize their contribution to the paper. Additionally, you need to inform the editor of these changes, providing a rationale for each. If not, this is likely to cause an authorship issue later and lead to a delay in acceptance and publication.

For more insights on this matter, you may also refer to the following similar queries by other users:

• Is it acceptable to add or remove authors after a paper has been accepted for publication?
• Is it ethical to add additional authors to a manuscript without consulting all co-authors?
• Is it possible to add new author during the revision process of manuscript?