Depending on the objective and challenges that trigger the desire to explore new collaboration opportunities, the parameters that matter the most are likely to change. For example, a clear and urgent gap for highly specific knowledge on a well defined technical area would require to prioritize a search space based on that specific expertise gap. In such a situation, the algorithm should focus on the topical layer and then provide recommendations that rank results based on the shortest overall distance.
In contrast, more open challenges were the problem, and the solution spaces are less clear, where there is more time available, and where the ambition is to find creative/unexpected solutions, can reduce the importance of geographical and relational distance and allow for more unusual connections based on for example topical connections that have not been tried yet but that are in sufficiently close "neighbourhoods".