First results from the COLA project: The radio-FIR correlation, compact radio cores, and radio excess in the southern COLA galaxies

The COLA (Compact Objects in Low-power AGN) project aims to determine the relationship between one facet of AGN activity, the compact radio core, with star formation in the circumnuclear region of the host galaxy. This will be accomplished by the comparison of the multiwavelength properties of a sample of AGN with compact radio cores, to those of matched samples of galaxies without AGN and AGN without compact cores. We discuss the selection criteria for our galaxy samples and present the first results from the project.