Gridcoin combines the energy-efficiency of Proof of Stake with scientific "Proof of Work" aka Proof of BOINC to Proof of Research. With the energy-efficiency of Blackcoin you can generate interest. While you are (optionally) donating your computation power to different BOINC projects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing) like cancer or malaria research, you generate additional coins.
The coin exists for more than 2 years now, there has been no premining. It is ASIC resistant because every whitelisted BOINC project has own algorithms and work on the projects is individually compensated. Some of the projects can utilize your CPU, some also the GPU and there is one for ASIC.