Aligning the Spectrum: Hybrid Graph Pre-training and Prompt Tuning across Homophily and Heterophily
Abstract
Graph ``pre-training and prompt-tuning'' aligns downstream tasks with pre-trained objectives to enable efficient knowledge transfer under limited supervision. However, current methods typically rely on single-filter backbones (e.g., low-pass), whereas real-world graphs exhibit inherent spectral diversity. Our theoretical Spectral Specificity principle reveals that effective knowledge transfer requires alignment between pre-trained spectral filters and the intrinsic spectrum of downstream graphs. This identifies two fundamental limitations: (1) Knowledge Bottleneck: single-filter models suffer from irreversible information loss by suppressing signals from other frequency bands (e.g., high-frequency); (2) Utilization Bottleneck: spectral mismatches between pre-trained filters and downstream spectra lead to significant underutilization of pre-trained knowledge. To bridge this gap, we propose HS-GPPT. We utilize a hybrid spectral backbone to construct an abundant knowledge basis. Crucially, we introduce Spectral-Aligned Prompt Tuning to actively align the downstream graph's spectrum with diverse pre-trained filters, facilitating comprehensive knowledge utilization across both homophily and heterophily. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness under both transductive and inductive learning settings.
Benchmark Results
Tested on 4 datasets 11 baseline values reported too low
Tables show presented results in global context (best 3 papers + GCN + MLP).
Heterophilic Graphs
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P^2GNN | 0.9672
±0.0147 | |
| 2 | DoG | 0.9660
±0.0210 | |
| 3 | GPF-plus | 0.9583
±0.0419 | |
| 34 | MLP | 0.9230
±0.0070 | |
| 53 | GraphSAGE | 0.9000
±0.0365 | |
| 211 | GAT | 0.8162
±0.0645 best reported | best at pub: Equivariance Everywhere All At Once: A Recipe for Graph Foundation Models (2025) |
| 257 | GCN | 0.7933
±0.0447 best reported | best at pub: Graph Wave Networks (WWW 2025) |
| 304 | DGI | 0.7581
±0.0503 best reported | |
| 453 | TFE-GNN | 0.6380
±0.0111 best reported | best today: Gauge-Equivariant Graph Networks via Self-Interference Cancellation (2025) |
| 550 | HS-GPPT | 0.5724 | This paper |
| 586 | PolyGCL | 0.4913 | This paper |
| 616 | GPrompt | 0.3325
±0.4011 best reported | best at pub: ProG: A Graph Prompt Learning Benchmark (NeurIPS 2024) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 617 | All-In-One | 0.3153
±0.1314 best reported | best today: One Prompt Fits All: Universal Graph Adaptation for Pretrained Models (NeurIPS 2025) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 619 | SimGRACE | 0.2833 | This paper |
| 620 | ProNoG | 0.2627 | This paper |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P^2GNN | 0.9541
±0.0272 | |
| 2 | ACM-GCN | 0.9480
±0.0380 | |
| 3 | RF-GCN | 0.9429 | |
| 24 | MLP | 0.9136
±0.0070 | |
| 138 | SAGE | 0.8269 | |
| 158 | GAT | 0.8190
±0.0540 best reported | best at pub: Restructuring Graphs for Higher Homophily via Adaptive Spectral Clustering (AAAI 2022) |
| 170 | GCN | 0.8082
±0.0360 best reported | best at pub: Bayesian Neighborhood Adaptation for Graph Neural Networks (TMLR 2025) |
| 350 | DGI | 0.6335 best reported | best at pub: Beyond Smoothing: Unsupervised Graph Representation Learning with Edge Heterophily Discriminating (AAAI 2022) |
| 445 | TFE-GNN | 0.5370
±0.0107 best reported | best today: Gauge-Equivariant Graph Networks via Self-Interference Cancellation (2025) |
| 513 | GraphCL | 0.4722
±0.0450 best reported | best at pub: Decoupled Self-supervised Learning for Non-Homophilou Graphs (2022) |
| 563 | GPPT | 0.3568
±0.0963 best reported | best today: Learning Graph Foundation Models on Riemannian Graph-of-Graphs (ICML 2026) |
| 573 | All-In-One | 0.2667
±0.1242 best reported | best today: One Prompt Fits All: Universal Graph Adaptation for Pretrained Models (NeurIPS 2025) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 577 | PolyGCL | 0.2268 | This paper |
| 578 | ProNoG | 0.1987 | This paper |
| 579 | SimGRACE | 0.1904 | This paper |
| 580 | GPF-plus | 0.1891 | This paper |
Heterophily Benchmark
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dir-Poly | 0.9451
±0.0022 | |
| 2 | D-CDE | 0.9387
±0.0041 | |
| 3 | LargeScaleNet | 0.9358
±0.0024 | |
| 26 | GraphSAGE | 0.9106
±0.0027 | |
| 77 | GCN | 0.8272
±0.0082 best reported | best at pub: HyperAggregation: Aggregating over Graph Edges with Hypernetworks (2024) |
| 83 | GAT | 0.8145
±0.0009 best reported | best at pub: Graph Neural Networks for Graphs with Heterophily: A Survey (2022) best today: Gumbel-MPNN: Graph Rewiring with Gumbel-Softmax (2025) |
| 135 | MLP | 0.6665
±0.0047 | |
| 196 | DGI | 0.4204
±0.0094 best reported | |
| 207 | HS-GPPT | 0.3520 | This paper |
| 213 | TFE-GNN | 0.3155 | This paper |
| 228 | GraphCL | 0.0961 | This paper |
| 229 | ProNoG | 0.0784 | This paper |
| 230 | GPPT | 0.0666 | This paper |
| 231 | SimGRACE | 0.0635 | This paper |
| 232 | PolyGCL | 0.0528 | This paper |
| 233 | GPrompt | 0.0522 | This paper |
| 234 | GPF-plus | 0.0383 | This paper |
| 235 | All-In-One | 0.0275 | This paper |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UniGAP | 0.6375
±0.0110 | |
| 2 | H2GCN + HalfHop | 0.5961
±0.0100 | |
| 3 | GraphSAGE + HalfHop | 0.5897
±0.0150 | |
| 12 | SAGE | 0.5569
±0.0023 | |
| 14 | GAT | 0.5559
±0.0027 best reported | best at pub: Piecewise Constant Spectral Graph Neural Network (TMLR 2025) |
| 24 | GCN | 0.5411
±0.0034 best reported | |
| 84 | MLP | 0.5058 | |
| 201 | GPPT | 0.2427
±0.0374 best reported | best today: GraphTOP: Graph Topology-Oriented Prompting for Graph Neural Networks (NeurIPS 2025) |
| 202 | ProNoG | 0.2326
±0.0242 best reported | best today: GraphTOP: Graph Topology-Oriented Prompting for Graph Neural Networks (NeurIPS 2025) |
| 204 | All-In-One | 0.2282
±0.0609 best reported | best today: GraphTOP: Graph Topology-Oriented Prompting for Graph Neural Networks (NeurIPS 2025) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 206 | HS-GPPT | 0.1972 | This paper |
| 207 | TFE-GNN | 0.1939 | This paper |
| 208 | PolyGCL | 0.1874 | This paper |
| 209 | GraphCL | 0.1853 | This paper |
| 210 | GPF-plus | 0.1833 | This paper |
| 211 | SimGRACE | 0.1761 | This paper |
| 212 | GPrompt | 0.1735 | This paper |
| 213 | DGI | 0.1485 | This paper |
