Graph Neural Networks for Graphs With Heterophily: A Survey

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed fast developments of graph neural networks (GNNs) that have benefited myriad graph analytic tasks and applications. Most GNNs rely on the homophily assumption that nodes belonging to the same class are more likely to be connected. However, as a ubiquitous graph property in numerous real-world scenarios, heterophily, i.e., nodes with different labels tend to be linked, significantly limits the performance of tailor-made homophilic GNNs. Hence,GNNs for heterophilic graphsare gaining increasing research attention to enhance graph learning with heterophily. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of GNNs for heterophilic graphs. Specifically, we propose a systematic taxonomy that governs existing heterophilic GNN models, along with general summaries and detailed analyses. Furthermore, we discuss the relationship between heterophily and various graph research domains, aiming to facilitate the development of more effective GNNs across a spectrum of practical applications and learning tasks in the graph research community. In the end, we point out potential directions to advance and inspire future research and applications on heterophilic graph learning with GNNs.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2026 · DOI ↗