# Graph Rewiring in GNNs to Mitigate Over-Squashing and Over-Smoothing: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.17429 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17429/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Neural Message Passing for Quantum Chemistry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01212/) (2017)
- [Graph Neural Networks: A Review of Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08434/) (2018)
- [Deep Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06114/) (2017)
- [DropEdge: Towards Deep Graph Convolutional Networks on Node Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10903/) (2019)
- [On the Bottleneck of Graph Neural Networks and its Practical Implications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05205/) (2020)
- [Understanding over-squashing and bottlenecks on graphs via curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14522/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Improves Graph Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05485/) (2019)
- [A critical look at the evaluation of GNNs under heterophily: Are we really making progress?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11640/) (2023)
- [Large Scale Learning on Non-Homophilous Graphs: New Benchmarks and Strong Simple Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14446/) (2021)
- [Long Range Graph Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08164/) (2022)
- [A Note on Over-Smoothing for Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13318/) (2020)
- [Graph Neural Networks for Graphs with Heterophily: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.07082/) (2022)
- [Scaling Graph Neural Networks with Approximate PageRank](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.01570/) (2020)
- [On Over-Squashing in Message Passing Neural Networks: The Impact of Width, Depth, and Topology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.02941/) (2023)
- [FoSR: First-order spectral rewiring for addressing oversquashing in GNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11790/) (2022)
- [Revisiting Over-smoothing and Over-squashing Using Ollivier-Ricci Curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15779/) (2022)
- [Understanding Oversquashing in GNNs through the Lens of Effective Resistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06835/) (2023)
- [DiffWire: Inductive Graph Rewiring via the Lov'asz Bound](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07369/) (2022)
- [Expander Graph Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02997/) (2022)
- [On the Trade-off between Over-smoothing and Over-squashing in Deep Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02374/) (2022)
- [Locality-Aware Graph-Rewiring in GNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01668/) (2023)
- [Oversquashing in GNNs through the lens of information contraction and graph expansion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.03471/) (2022)
- [Mitigating Over-Smoothing and Over-Squashing using Augmentations of Forman-Ricci Curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09384/) (2023)
- [Generalization in Graph Neural Networks: Improved PAC-Bayesian Bounds on Graph Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04451/) (2023)
- [Probabilistically Rewired Message-Passing Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02156/) (2023)
- [Spectral Graph Pruning Against Over-Squashing and Over-Smoothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04612/) (2024)
- [Over-Squashing in Graph Neural Networks: A Comprehensive survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15568/) (2023)
- [Cayley Graph Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03424/) (2024)
- [Probabilistic Graph Rewiring via Virtual Nodes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17311/) (2024)
- [Understanding Virtual Nodes: Oversquashing and Node Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13526/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Oversmoothing, Oversquashing, Heterophily, Long-Range, and more: Demystifying Common Beliefs in Graph Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15547/) (2025)
- [Return of ChebNet: Understanding and Improving an Overlooked GNN on Long Range Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07624/) (2025)
- [Dynamic Triangulation-Based Graph Rewiring for Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19071/) (2025)
- [It Takes a Graph to Know a Graph: Rewiring for Homophily with a Reference Graph](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12411/) (2025)
- [A Remedy for Over-Squashing in Graph Learning via Forman-Ricci Curvature based Graph-to-Hypergraph Structural Lifting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.11390/) (2025)
- [Exploring the impact of adaptive rewiring in Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10754/) (2026)
- [Ramanujan Graph Rewiring with Non Negative Resistance Curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21333/) (2026)
- [Omega-N: Interpretable Structural Node Descriptors and Their Applicability Domain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01633/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Graph Neural Networks are powerful models for learning from graph-structured data, yet their effectiveness is often limited by two critical challenges: over-squashing, where information from distant nodes is excessively compressed, and over-smoothing, where repeated propagation makes node representations indistinguishable. Both phenomena stem from the interaction between message passing and the input topology, ultimately degrading information flow and limiting the performance of GNNs. In this survey, we examine graph rewiring techniques, a class of methods designed to modify the graph topology to enhance information propagation in GNNs. We provide a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art rewiring approaches, delving into their theoretical underpinnings, practical implementations, and performance trade-offs.