Generally speaking, we should be cautious of inviting reviewers recommended by the authors. In my past experience, many author-recommended reviewers give more positive comments. However, I also see some reviewers give strict and high quality review.

So, can we invite the author-recommended reviewers to do peer-review?  My answer is certain!

We require authors recommend three reviewers for their manuscript when they are submitting their manuscript.

If the recommended reviewers meet these conditions, then we can invite for review:

1.      He has an instituttional email address.

2.      He has the expertise in the research fields of the manuscript.

3.      He does not have interest conflict with the authors or have not coauthored with the autohrs in the recent years (we’ll add this requirements in the author guides and in the Reviewer Invitation Letter)

Some publishers will spot check the peer-review and may retract some articles detected to be reviewed by fake reviewers or reviewers with interest conflict with the authors.

Interest conflict here includes:

1. The authors and the reviewers are family members.

2. The authors and reviewers are in the same project team.

3. The authors and reviewers coauthored in the recent several years.

4. The authors and authors are close friends.