Foundations and modelling of dynamic networks using Dynamic Graph Neural Networks: A survey

Abstract

Dynamic networks are used in a wide range of fields, including social network analysis, recommender systems and epidemiology. Representing complex networks as structures changing over time allow network models to leverage not only structural but also temporal patterns. However, as dynamic network literature stems from diverse fields and makes use of inconsistent terminology, it is challenging to navigate. Meanwhile, graph neural networks (GNNs) have gained a lot of attention in recent years for their ability to perform well on a range of network science tasks, such as link prediction and node classification. Despite the popularity of graph neural networks and the proven benefits of dynamic network models, there has been little focus on graph neural networks for dynamic networks. We aim to provide a review that demystifies dynamic networks, introduces dynamic graph neural networks (DGNNs) and appeals to researchers with a background in either network science or data science. We contribute: (i) a comprehensive dynamic network taxonomy, (ii) a survey of dynamic graph neural networks and (iii) an overview of how dynamic graph neural networks can be used for dynamic link prediction